Thought I would revive this
thread as the book (two volume set) has been published.
Coins of the
Holy Land: The Abraham and Marian
Sofaer Collection at the
American Numismatic Society and the
Israel Museum. (
Ancient Coins in
North American
Collections 8, 2013) by Ya’akov
Meshorer with Gabriela
Bijovsky and Wolfgang
Fischer-Bossert, and edited by David
Hendin and Andrew
Meadows.
(ISBN-13: 978-0-89722-283-9 Hardback, 2 vols, 344+244pp)
I have my copy and I am sure some others here do as well. I would be interested in views of others.
My Initial Thoughts
I have browsed through the whole book but have only started to look at a couple of sections in depth so I only have initial impressions to share.
First of all, about the physical books themselves.
The first volume of the two volume set covers the text, the second has the plates. Personally I like this system as you can have both volumes open at the same time - one to the text and one to the plates. It is far better than flipping through the same volume to consult the plates. I also find it better than volumes that try to have the plate facing the text as these always seem to have exceptions where you
still have to
flip back and forth to find the right pages.
The book, printing, paper,
binding and illustrations are all extremely high
quality as is to be expected in modern ANS publications. The vast majority of illustrations appear to be "life-size" though there are some small coins, especially in the Samarian section, that are shown life-size and enlarged.
The Coverage
The book details a single
collection of coins from a single region. It is the
collection of Mr. and Mrs.
Sofaer that is on loan, and in fact in the process of being permanently donated to, the ANS in
New York. The book covers coins of the
Holy Land region although in this case that covers modern
Israel, the Palestinian Territories and Jordan. I might be mistaken but I don't think it covers a single city from what is today Lebanon or
Syria. It covers coins from the
Persian period, through
Seleucid and
Ptolemaic occupation,
Hasmonaean,
Herodian and
Nabataean issues,
Roman Provincial,
Byzantine, Arabic and
Crusader. However, it only covers coins struck in the region and thus, for example, does not cover
Seleucid coins struck in
Antioch or
Ptolemaic coins struck in
Alexandria.
The Organization.
The organization is an interesting one, and fairly unique as far as I have seen. Most of the
work is divided by city and under each city entry you find listed Persian, Greek,
Roman Provincial,
Byzantine, Arab and
Crusader coins in chronological order. The exceptions to this are the
Judaean (
Hasmonaean,
Herodian and revolt) and
Nabataean coins which have their own sections.
Assessment
As I noted before this is only an initial assessment.
You have to keep in mind that the book is a corpus of one
collection and not of all coinage and variations from the region. Thus it is most like the
SNG ANS 6 volume (though it goes past that volume to add
Byzantine, Arabic and
Crusader). That said it is likely on of the best
collections in the world from this region. Furthermore, much of the coinage of the region has been insufficiently studied to date.
I think you have to examine some of the coinage
types separately to determine the extra value of this
work.
I do not know enough about the Persian era coinage to know about the coverage but at first glance I do not see any huge leap beyond
SNG ANS 6 or, more importantly the recent Hoover volume on this
area.
Similarly it does not look to add a huge amount beyond the
Lorber and Houghton Seleucid Coinage volumes although I expect there are several new pieces of information here.
These days every little
bit on
Ptolemaic coinage is valuable although I understand that a new important
work by Lorber is underway at the ANS.
While the
Judaean collection is certainly impressive this
work will not replace the need for the 5th edition of David Hendin's book.
It has interesting and up to date info on
Nabataean coinage though I do not have the ANS' recent Caravan Kingdoms volumes to compare it with.
The Arabic coinage looks very interesting, and it is useful to have it broken down by
mint. However, I can not comment on degree of coverage knowing little about the recent literature in this
area and I simply can not say anything regarding the
crusader coinage which I know nothing about.
Even if the book does not represent the full picture in any of these areas it is
still an excellent resource for them. The plates and the fact the information is up to date make it very worthwhile to have.
However, it is in the remaining areas that the book really
comes to the fore.
I know very little about Samarian coinage but I see no reason to doubt the comments by the authors and editors themselves who note that this
work is a major leap forward in understand this extensive coinage of small silver fractions.
Finally, the real interest for me is in the
Roman provincial coinage. I think that it is here that the book really stands
head and shoulder over all others. My main sources in this
area were
SNG ANS 6 and
Spijkerman and to a lesser extent the
Lindgren trio. True the
Sofaer collection book does not present every variant and every possible
legend reconstruction but it appears to exceed most other sources in number of
types for each city and with the collection's concentration on coins of the highest
quality it offers the best
legend reconstructions anywhere. I have looked in particular at some cities like
Abila,
Pella, Philadelphia/Rabbath-Ammon and
Petra and been very impressed. I have yet to look at other cities in depth.
My well worn
Spijkerman that has been my first go-to source for this coinage for many years will now get a well earned rest on the back shelf.
Still useful for
legend variations and such but the
Sofaer collection will be front and centre for a long time.
Overall it was worth the long wait and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in coinage of the
Holy Land and especially to those interested in
Roman provincial coins of the region.
It is not
cheap. The
forum book store does not seem to carry it. It can be found at the ANS
bookstore site and people should be aware that there is a substantial discount for
members. In fact the discount is over 50% of the annual
membership fee.
Shawn
