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COIN (NEW CONCEPTS)
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Hatty
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In: Berkshire
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Greek coins from the 'Exeter hoard' have been revealed as hoaxes -- not 'contemporary forgeries' as with the above-mentioned Merovingian coin but Grand Tour mementos.. This seems to put paid to theoretical Greek traders sailing to Ictis, St Michael Mount's Bay, to pick up tin supplies in person

The Exeter coins were first discussed by W. T. P. Shortt in the Gentleman’s Magazine (1837) and later in his Sylva Antiqua Iscana (1841); his own notes expressed doubt about only some of them. Coins were found on a number of occasions, first in 1810 during excavations for a sewer in Fore Street when about 110 Greek coins and 1,000 Roman coins were recovered from depths down to about 20 feet. Subsequent discoveries at intervals down to the 1930s were supposed to be genuine if they were not “the work of several generations of hoaxers operating with a single-mindedness and persistence rare in Devon”.

It always comes down to quantity and motivation, who would go to the considerable trouble and expense of forging a hundred or more coins and adding them to another, presumably genuine collection?

Unfortunately, a number of the coins listed by Milne had been found in Roman contexts which he discussed with Goodchild in a paper in 1937, but ignored in 1948. The Exeter coins included some recovered from the ruins of a Roman building, while those found in 1810 were dismissed by Haverfield and Macdonald (1907, pp. 156-7) because they contained two nineteenth century forgeries. Milne and Goodchild (1937) suggested the forgeries became associated with the genuine coins at a later date.

This is reminiscent of coin finds containing, say, two Anglo-Saxon sceattas.

Suffice it to say that most of the assemblage survives and was examined by the late George Boon, both a first-class archaeologist and numismatist. He concluded that “the Exeter material in no case exhibits the appearance of a coin which has lain for many centuries in the soil of Exeter. None has the deep layer of corrosion-products to be expected of authentic finds .... Furthermore, several exhibit substantial traces of a thin, buff coating which is the hallmark of finds from the Levant and quite unmistakeable .... typical of coins brought back from the eastern Mediterranean”.

He stressed that British commitments in the eastern Mediterranean since Napoleonic times, plus the commercial links since the establishment of the Levant Company in 1597, “opened many opportunities for the acquisition of exotic coins on the spot, where in some cases at least they still served as small change and in all cases were available by the handful”

Modern forgers are skilled in replicating corrosive effects on metal and have exemplars available to examine, though sometimes appear more interested in creating an aesthetic rather than properly 'distressed' object

Two Greek silver coins in very good condition were discovered in 1941 or 1942 during cultivation of a field at Holne Chase, Dartmoor, which Aileen Fox (1950) considered to be genuine ancient imports: one was a tetradrachm of Alexander III, minted in Alexandria “not before 326 BC”, and the other a tetradrachm of the Roman province of Macedonia in northern Greece struck by Aesillas, quaestor in 93-92 BC. These were found about two miles south-south-west of the Iron Age hillfort close to which iron currency bars had been found. Nevertheless, their “very good condition” only inspires confidence that they were modern losses.

Few Greek coins have been found in Cornwall and none in a sealed, datable context.

Coin finds have to agree with the sources relied on by historians and archaeologists
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Hatty wrote:
Greek coins from the 'Exeter hoard' have been revealed as hoaxes -- not 'contemporary forgeries' as with the above-mentioned Merovingian coin but Grand Tour mementos.. This seems to put paid to theoretical Greek traders sailing to Ictis, St Michael Mount's Bay, to pick up tin supplies in person


The Greeks had to get their tin from somewhere, so Devon and Cornwall are possibilities.



Few Greek coins have been found in Cornwall and none in a sealed, datable context.

If ortho is to be believed the first celtic coinage is stylised representations of Phillip of Macedon on the obverse and his horse on the reverse.

So you have no nice beautiful Greek coins but the local versions are barbaric imitations of Greek coins. Penhallurick gets around this by arguing that although Greek coinage was widely appreciated, this does not mean that autonomous Greek coins reached Britain in the first and second centuries BC.

Wiles draws a different conclusion.
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Hatty
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In: Berkshire
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Didia Clara was the only child and daughter of the Roman Emperor Didius Julianus. She was born around 153AD and with her mother she briefly held the title Augusta. She was born and raised in Rome. Little is known about her personality or life. - the date of her death is unknown.

It seems the only thing we 'know' about Didia is what she looked like



A fourth century compilation of emperors' biographies, the Historia Augusta, is apparently the source for Didia's life but Wiki says the dating, not to mention its reliability, is disputed

The collection, as extant, comprises thirty biographies, most of which contain the life of a single emperor, but some include a group of two or more, grouped together merely because these emperors were either similar or contemporaneous.

The true authorship of the work, its actual date, its reliability and its purpose have long been matters for controversy by historians and scholars ever since Hermann Dessau in 1889 rejected both the date and the authorship as stated within the manuscript.

Major problems include the nature of the sources that it used, and how much of the content is pure fiction. For instance, the collection contains in all about 150 alleged documents, including 68 letters, 60 speeches and proposals to the people or the senate, and 20 senatorial decrees and acclamations. Virtually all of them are now considered to be fraudulent.

There is of course no extant original of the Historia Augusta though there are citations from it ('it' being the missing original?) scattered among "authors of the 6th and 9th or 10th centuries". However

How widely the work was circulated in late antiquity is unknown

so it can't have been all that widely cited.

But where or rather when did the Didia Clara coins appear? These coins are a bit reminiscent of 'portraits' that get attached to people often centuries after they lived but at least the sitters had actually existed (in some cases)
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Damnatio memoriae is a modern Latin phrase meaning "condemnation of memory", indicating that a person is to be excluded from official accounts. There are and have been many routes to damnatio, including the destruction of depictions, the removal of names from inscriptions and documents, and even large-scale rewritings of history. The term can be applied to other instances of official scrubbing; the practice is seen as long ago as the reign of the Egyptian Pharaoh Hatshepsut in the 14th century BC.

Although the term damnatio memoriae is Latin, the phrase was not used by the ancient Romans, and first appeared in a dissertation written in Germany in 1689. The term is used in modern scholarship to cover a wide array of official and unofficial sanctions through which the physical remnants and memories of a deceased individual are destroyed.[1][2] Even saying a name has been punishable.



The ortho answer is that Julianus was killed in the palace by a soldier on June 1, 193 AD. The Senate passed a damnatio memoriae motion (the term wasn't in use) to condemn Julianus and his legacy.
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Boreades


In: finity and beyond
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Wile E. Coyote wrote:

It all sounds very exciting, we don't actually know the full name of Allectus, (Carausius we think we know from abbreviations on coins) he was a Marcus Aurelius (as were virtually all) We don't know where they were born or who their parents were... their histories stem from a presumed lost imperial record........

Did this get mentioned?

Roman coin of killer emperor found near Dover sells for half a million. An ancient Roman coin showing a killer emperor has sold for more than half a million pounds. It went under the hammer today for £552,000, more than five times the maximum estimate of £100,000. It shows the head of Allectus, a finance minister who rose to the top by murdering his predecessor.


https://www.kentonline.co.uk/dover/news/killer-emperor-coin-bought-for-half-a-million-206134/

Half a million! Lovely jubbly. But still not as good as Dell & Rodney and the Harrison "lesser watch".
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Thanks Boro

Wish I had spotted that..........
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Wile E. Coyote wrote:
It all sounds very exciting, we don't actually know the full name of Allectus, (Carausius we think we know from abbreviations on coins) he was a Marcus Aurelius (as were virtually all) We don't know where they were born or who their parents were... their histories stem from a presumed lost imperial record........


Actually I do now know, thanks to Boro. It's Alexander or Alexandria.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Roman trading network pushes out Greek.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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This will get a chapter in The Boys Book Battle of Imaginary Battles now I have the coin proof.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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That's it. Carausius = Cairo.
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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Mind sharing with the group how you make that connection?
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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A good illustration of what poor old Wiley is up against. It's a Twitter from the Journal of Art (26,000 followers)

Possibly the most valuable of all ancient Greek coins, this superbly-detailed rare silver decadrachm (10 drachma) from c 400BC depicts 4-horse chariot driven by sun god Helios â–  & two eagles clutching hare. Probably issued to commemorate Olympic Games (Akragas, Sicily)

That got seven hundred likes [Hatty to post up image] and only one dissenting voice in a chorus of gee-whizzes. If I told you she has thirty-seven followers and her reply got only one like, you might know who I am referring to

The coin doesn't look very worn considering the date ascribed to it. Provenance?

Provenance is weak due to annoying habit of collectors of highly expensive items staying anonymous. Eagles were a very common, standard inclusion on Akragas coins. The fact that a good provenance is not publicly available does not necessarily mean that it must be a fake. Most recent sale, for 2.3 million Swiss Francs

So if I produce a coin you might like, but I keep the provenance to myself, you'll buy it anyway?

Obviously not, if those are the only facts. The weaker the provenance, the more important that expert opinion becomes

Does a forger count as an expert?

Generally not. Can we move on?

Not really, no. Unless you care to explain what it is that an expert can see that a forger cannot forge. But I quite understand if you do not want to confront this problem, few do.

If you choose to demand certainty in art, I fear that you will be perpetually disappointed

You are confusing 'lack of certainty' with 'complete lottery' and 'complete lottery' with 'forgers' paradise'. But you are guaranteed to be perpetually not-disappointed. I envy you a little.
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Hatty
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In: Berkshire
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U.S. officials return Ancient Greek coins to their home

Rare ancient coins confiscated during an undercover investigation into black-market coin trading in New York City are being returned to Greece

Back in 2012 an American surgeon and avid coin collector was arrested for possession of illegal coins at the Waldorf Astoria where a coin auction was being held. Everyone agrees the coins are 'exquisite ancient artefacts' despite provenance being unknown but well known as distinctly non-kosher.

The image of the Akragas coin (circa 409-406 B.C.) posted on Twitter is copyrighted by Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. This is a link to the article (2014)

https://en.protothema.gr/u-s-officials-return-ancient-greek-coins-to-their-home/
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Mick Harper
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The surgeon, who had been an avid coin collector and investor for 35 years, had also served on the board of the American Numismatic Society. He pleaded guilty to attempted criminal possession of stolen property.

I see. The highest authority in the land is a crook.

The charges concerned three coins that Mr. Weiss thought were fourth century B.C. Greek pieces that had been smuggled from Italy but were actually forgeries. He wanted to sell one of them for about $350,000 and two others at $1.2 million each.

I see. So the highest authority in the land thought they were genuine but they were actually forgeries.

He was forced to forfeit about 20 other coins that included the authentic pieces that are being sent back to Greece. These include silver coins dating as far back as 515 B.C.

I see. So some other highest authorities in the land said he could recognise these over here as authentic but not those over there that weren't. It's voodoo numismatics, folks!
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Mick Harper wrote:
A good illustration of what poor old Wiley is up against. It's a Twitter from the Journal of Art (26,000 followers)


I would flip this.


Why have there been so few Ancient Greek coins found in Britain?

BTW are you OK, if I seek permission from Wildwinds to post up some coin images, on your site.
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