COIN SCHOLARSHIP: SCHOLARLY INTERPRETATIONS ARE WIDE OPEN

 

There are three kinds of history.  A) what really happened; Nobody knows beyond the most basic facts, and even those are often in contention.  B) What the victors said happened in contemporaryt texts.  C) What certain historians try to reconstruct according to their interpratations of older texts and archeological discovery.

Where does coin history come in?  Coins are archeological artifacts.  At best they will have pictures of rulers and dates on them.  In this case we know who issued the coin, where they ruled and when.  

Of course many coins, especially archaic coins, have no writing and only pictures of mythological creatures.  It they are found in situ archeologists can date them and place them according to objects tht do have writing or images of rulers or other objects that are carbon dateable, that are found with them in situ.

If not, it's all guesswork.  Some guesswork is better than other.  Die studies is a form of guesswork that has some merit.  Mettalurgical analysis provides clues to eductated guesses. as certain metals are found in certain combinations in certain places.  And symbols provide clues for educated guesswork.

But take the beautiful Hekte (sixth stater) above.  Coin history dates this to 454-427 BCE to the island of Lesbos.  That is all guesswork.  Could this coin be dated to 480 BCE or 520 BCE or 550 BCE?  Of course it could.  It could possibly be dated to 600 BCE.  That would push back older coinage with no images and crude punches closer to 700 BCE where the archeological community places it, and that creates lacunae in numismatic chronology that numismatists find uncomforatble.  But those are not historically compelling reasons for dating a coin.

What about the images?  Coin History has decided that the obverse is a satyr and the reverse are rams butting heads.  It says so right on the holder.

Why?  The image could be a satyr.  But then why is it adorned with a Diadem?  An uncomforatble anomoly.  Wouldn't that make it an image of a king?  And what king had Donkey Ears?  King Midas springs to mind - and who better to depict on a Gold Coin than the Mythological King that fell in love with gold and was punished witht the Golden Touch?

And what of the rerverse,  Could these be Rams butting Heads?  Sure.  But why?  Why pair that image with Midas who has no connection to rams.  However this image is also the way the Golden Fleece that the Argonauts sought has been depicted throughout history.  Would that not be an much more compelling image: Gold as the object of Human Desire to pair with the King who prized gold above all else?

I think so.  But that's just my interpretation.

What's yours?  

One of the things that makes coin collecting/investing so much fun is that interpretation, dating, and historical analysis is so wide open.  So discovering the past becomes a live and engaging intellectual pursuit rather than a rote recitiation of "facts."