Ordering the World In Coins

Between the seventh century BC and Late Antiquity, enormous quantities of coins were produced serially in hundreds of mints across Europe, Northern Africa and Western Asia. In view of the durability of the metals used for the production of ancient coins primarily gold, silver and various copper alloys millions of these pieces survive into the modern period. The exceptional importance of coins as sources for the history and culture of the ancient world was recognised in Europe during the Renaissance. Right from the beginning, one of the main problems for numismatic researchers was, however, the sheer number and high diversity of ancient coins: how to best cope with masses of pieces from diverse ancient cultures, featuring myriads of different types, and struck in a plethora of different mints? While the names of the Roman mint magistrates and especially the emperors, well known from textual sources, provide a useful guideline at least for the chronology of Roman coins, systematising autonomous Greek coins is very tricky: frequently, these pieces were ordered by metals or sizes in the early days, and also alphabetically, according to beginning of the coin legends a completely unsatisfying approach, in the historians perspective. The system currently used for ordering ancient coins in large collections and in scholarship essentially goes back to the Austrian numismatist Joseph Eckhel (17371798). In his eight- volume Doctrina numorum veterum (Vienna, 17921798) he proposed a geographical ordering system for the non-Roman coins, going clockwise around the Mediterranean, from Spain to Northern Africa. His system was criticised only by few scholars at the time and eventually came to be used universally. In this research project, the first ever analysis of the development of the so-called Systema Eckhelianum will be provided. An excellent source for studying the manifold influences impacting the creation of Eckhels system is the scholarly correspondence of his Austrian precursors: the Jesuit numismatists and historians Erasmus Frölich (17001758) and Joseph Khell (17141772); the latter was Eckhels teacher in numismatics. Among Khells most important international correspondents we find the famous French numismatist Joseph Pellerin (16841783), who published the most important coins from his huge collection in a multi-volume work: he was to first scholar to adopt a geographical ordering system for autonomous Greek coins in print. In this project, editions of the scholarly correspondence of Frölich and Khell (to be published in print and online) will therefore be prepared, with historical and numismatic commentaries. In this way, Eckhels system can be contextualized properly for the first time: we will provide a critical analysis of the overall development of ordering systems of ancient coins, from the 16th century onwards. In doing so, we will achieve a better understanding of one of the very foundations of numismatic science.