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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Roman triumphalist coinage featuring Caesar.
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While the AE sceptical tone is helpful, perhaps a well argued case backed up with facts for both authenticity and fakery of the coin would be helpful.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The point I shall be developing is that two days ago none of us thought such a case was worth arguing one or the other. On the narrow question of the authenticity of the Vercingetorix coins we have had very little difficulty in uncovering that there is a prime facie case that they might be bogus.
In AE it is not the difficulty of proving a bogus case to be bogus that is the problem, it is the the uncovering of there being a case to answer in the first place. It is rather like catching a serial killer; that is not so hard in itself, it is the difficulty of recognising that a serial killer is at work against the background of many ordinary murders.
Have a look back, Frank (and anyone else): what was it that first put us on the trail of the Vercingetorix fake? (I ask this question irrespective of whether it is a fake or not.)
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| frank h wrote: | | While the AE sceptical tone is helpful, perhaps a well argued case backed up with facts for both authenticity and fakery of the coin would be helpful. |
I don't believe in building a case from evidence. It's a waste of time. You can support any notion with evidence.
Principle is everything.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | Have a look back, Frank (and anyone else): what was it that first put us on the trail of the Vercingetorix fake? (I ask this question irrespective of whether it is a fake or not.) |
It was I who simply stated that it is prima face ridiculous that, more than 2000 years ago no less, Julius Ceasar wrote a novelization of his campaigns in Europe -- and that this novelization then miraculously survived into the present day.
Ridiculous!
If someone bothered to look into the Historiography of Ceasar's novel, they would soon discover that the thing wasn't heard of until after the Renaissance (I say this confidently though I've never researched the matter). Its provenance may be shockingly recent -- as I discovered with the DaVinci sketches.
Ceasar's novel is the only source of the name Vercingetorix.
Therefore, all coins featuring the name Vercingetorix are fake.
Therefore, the entire coin collecting industry is founded on fakes as the Vercingetorix coins are materially indistinguishable from any others. If there are almost 30 fake Vercingetorix coins -- the sum total of all such coins that exist -- there must be thousands of other fakes in circulation -- constituting the vast majority of "surviving" ancient coins.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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This is one route in, yes. However such a maximilist case as the one you habitually adopt, Ishmael, opens too many cans of worms. You simply get lost in such a profusion of strands. Apart from anything else, it means you cannot use the experts to trip up the experts (the crucial ju-jitsu technique of AE).
If we return to
| There are less than thirty known staters that bear the Vercingetorix name. |
we immediately understand that an expert, a numismatist, unconsciously knows that something is wrong. We know this from two factors: "less than thirty" is an idiotic statement because to know there are less than thirty must mean that the actual number is known to that expert. Unless the numismatist 'knows' that there are 'some fakes' in the (to use Steven's figures) twenty-seven extant examples. Then he might use such a formulation. But some opens the door to all. Perhaps that is why he prefers to be vague (in his own mind).
But the other weird terminology is the phrase "less than". Why is the expert stressing scarcity when it is perfectly obvious that to have twenty-seven (or however many) examples of such a 'rare' historical individual is a colossally large number. It should be "as many as thirty" or even "nearly thirty". But never "less than thirty".
Unless of course he is trying to ramp up a market but we know there are only four (or whatever) in private hands so there is no market.
None of this proves a forgery. That is not my purpose. I am trying to point out that AE-ists have to develop mechanisms for finding out where the loose strand of wool is so that the gentle tugging unravels the whole garment. The unravelling is relatively straightforward (or if it isn't, it wasn't a loose strand in the first place) but the recognising where to look in the first place is.
But perhaps even that is not enough. Personally I don't much care whether Vercingetorix staters are all, some or none kosher but I have had a crash course in coins and their place in the grand firmament. That is worth knowing. And I couldn't have got it any other way.
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| There are less than thirty known staters that bear the Vercingetorix name. |
Unfortunately, there's nothng wrong in rounding it off to 'less than 30', which is just what 27 represents... this is just hair splitting
And by stressing that there are less than... eventhough in terms of academic records that might be a lot, that still doesn't represent much to most readers, so there's nothing wrong with that either...
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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Steven, did you happen to notice the name of this web site?
That's right... I's The Applied Epistemology Library
Now please explain why you think it has that title... and exactly what you think it entails.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | This is one route in, yes. However such a maximilist case as the one you habitually adopt, Ishmael, opens too many cans of worms. |
That is not a valid objection. It is the chief objection used against any attempt to undermine a foundational assumption.
| You simply get lost in such a profusion of strands. Apart from anything else, it means you cannot use the experts to trip up the experts (the crucial ju-jitsu technique of AE). |
Perhaps in some cases. If so, it's unfortunate. Nevertheless, Ceasar's 2000-millennia-old docu-drama is either a real artifact or it is a forgery. You can't deny the negative alternative simply because it makes you uncomfortable. Frankly, the claim that such a thing exists appears preposterous when examined objectively.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | ..."less than thirty" is an idiotic statement because to know there are less than thirty must mean that the actual number is known to that expert. Unless the numismatist 'knows' that there are 'some fakes' in the (to use Steven's figures) twenty-seven extant examples....But the other weird terminology is the phrase "less than". Why is the expert stressing scarcity when it is perfectly obvious that to have twenty-seven (or however many) examples of such a 'rare' historical individual is a colossally large number. |
Bravo!
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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So where has your approach got you? Apart from becoming a Fomenko disciple, I cannot recall any great contributions. And yet, using a minimalist strategy, you were able to see immediately that the writing on the Vercingetorix coin was deeply suspect -- something that had passed everyone else by.
Once you have proved that every Vercingetorix coin is a fake (in my view a real possibility) then you might go on to show that De Bello Gallico is from the same stable. After that, well....
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | So where has your approach got you? Apart from becoming a Fomenko disciple, I cannot recall any great contributions. |
Sometimes you are a dolt.
This entire conversation is the fruit of the AE principle, nothing ever gets worse (which I distilled from some of Fomenko's analytic method) and the other AE principle one of us formulated, there are no special cases (which is certainly distilled from your analytic method).
Ceasar's account of his war in Europe fails on both counts. My assertion that it fails brought the paltry counter-evidence to light.
Just weeks ago I dismissed the painting in one cave in France as phony using the same principle -- that nothing ever gets worse. Before the month was through the group here had undermined that entire branch of archaeology.
I've been out to prove Queen Elizabeth and her Dad inventions of History for a couple of years now (ever since I noticed the patern of Octavians). A few months ago the evidence finally began to come together -- and led straight to Akhenaten and King Tut as perfect analogues of Henry 8th and Edward 6th. Akhenaten even has a daughter named Mary Tutor -- oops -- I mean Maritaten.
Envious much?
I realize of course that fate decrees disciple and teacher must have their inevitable falling out and you must end your days decrying all my works but let's wait until I've got something published. And before you start -- it took you long enough to get round to it too.
And I sit on top of more stuff in silence than I share with you lot.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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I noticed virtually none of the above.
What I picked up as soon as we started discussing ancient white horses, was this:
As coins cannot be carbon dated, the experts have adopted a method of stylistic dating. It's basically a form of (I am struggling for the correct term here) "Coin Darwinism" They looked for a common ancestor to the coin under consideration. The common ancestor of all coins was originally Phillip of Macedon.
They then sequenced round Phillip and conventional chronology and this created for these experts a logical sequenced narrative.(this is what I refer to as The Coin Myth)
The V coins fit in according to the experts as it's a form of Phillip and is mentioned in classical sources .....case closed.
To join the experts club, you play by the rules.
A forgery according to these experts is really just a coin that cannot be sequenced by these rules.
In my opinion there are many coins that are forgeries.
But there are also (probably) coins that are not forgeries that have been termed forgeries by these experts, simply because they cannot be logically sequenced in terms of The Great Coin Myth.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I am suitably penitent.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| To join the experts club, you play by the rules. |
Perhaps this should be adopted as the AE motto though it might be amended to read "To join the experts club, you learn to play by the rules" because the act of becoming an expert is essentially the same as the learning of a set of rules (including what data is ruled in and what is ruled out).
An expert in Applied Epistemology also learns the rules (of a given subject) but does not believe them. He studies the rules to subvert the subject not to become an expert in it.
The reason why we are necessary (and why our work is relatively easy) can be seen in the case of the Vercingetorix stater. Consider the experts' relationship to this coin. Historians, the obvious first port of call, are forbidden from studying the matter! All they can do is to study the contemporaneous written accounts of Vercingetorix coins, and of course there aren't any.
In theory they are allowed to study the coins themselves, which purport in themselves to be written contemporaneous accounts of course, but they are obliged on such a narrow question to give way to the real experts in this field, the numismatists. Which numismatist is going to go down in history as the person who fucked over twenty-odd museums with their 'priceless' Vercingetorix staters? Not to mention, since these coins are the posterboys of the Barbarian Coin Industry, undermining the entire fidelity of Numismatia.
Well, maybe one of them might one day but unfortunately for him/her he will be faced with the combined peer review of all historians, all numismatists and all museum curators. Best of luck, pally! Best join the Applied Epistemologists.
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