NEW BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS

[Alisdair]

Congratulations, that's a very big accomplishment!

And the website is really top-notch, too.

Nick

Thanks for the encouragement, Nick (and those others who've PM'd me)! Just to let you guys know: the book is now available in both formats at the usual sales outlets (Amazon, B+N, etc.), as well as the Lulu and Createspace sites.

[altanbilgen]

First International Congress of the Anatolian Monetary History and Numismatics book was published.

More detail is here:

http://akmed.kaleicimuzesi.com/en/index.php?page=kitap&kid=91

[SC]

I now have both a hard copy and a soft copy of Alisdair's new translation of Guido Bruck's Late Roman Bronze Coinage: An attribution guide for poorly preserved coins.

Caveat: I did assist Alisdair in a tiny way with this project so I am biased.

That said this is a great book available at an extremely low price.  It is simply a must for everyone who deals with late Roman bronze coins, especially ones that are poorly preserved or still uncleaned.  

The original has been out of print since 1961 and hard to find, especially for those outside Austria and Germany.   It is also hard to get.  I think I paid 90 Euro for my copy several years ago.  It is also in German, though it was still pupular with non-German speakers due to the fact it is primarily based on charts and line drawings.

I have filed my hard copy on my shelf next to my original Bruck.  I have taken the lighter and cheaper soft copy and now use it as a checklist of my collection.  I simply circle each example I have on the charts and lists.  Not every late Roman coin type, mint issue or Emperor issue is found in Bruck - if it wasn't in the Vienna collection in 1961 it is not there - but most are.  If I have one in my collection that is not it is easy to add it into the chart as an extra check.  So the small soft cover is what I now drag around to shows and dealers.

Shawn

[curtislclay]

Curtis Clay and Shawn Caza have been of huge help in reviewing the text and translation - many thanks to them!

I am not a collector or student of late Roman bronze coinage, but have come to know the value of Bruck's book since taking up the position of Roman coin cataloguer for Harlan Berk in 1994. It's very useful to have most of the essential information about any late Roman type in one place: the size of the coins, AE II, III, or IV; what mints struck it, and for which emperors and Caesars; what obverse legends and bust types occur on those coins; any variations in the reverse legend, or in the rendering of the reverse type; field marks that occur on obverse or reverse.

Most of that same information can of course be found in RIC VII-IX, but there each type is treated mint by mint, in its chronological order within the mint's production, and with the obverse legends and bust types rendered by codes and so needing looking up. The information about each type is scattered throughout the books, and there is no quick, simple way to look it up. Bruck has done that laborious task of compilation for us.

Dependence on the Vienna collection alone is hardly a handicap, since Vienna has by far the best collection of late Roman bronze coins in existence, chiefly by virtue of having acquired Otto Voetter's immense private collection of them shortly before the First World War. There are very few types or varieties that Vienna is lacking.

The one thing missing from Bruck's book is a compilation of the forms of mintmark that occurred for each type at each mint. Bruck generally doesn't give mintmarks, because he assumes that they will have been worn away on the excavation coins that you may have before you to catalogue.

My own contribution to Alisdair's translation and re-edition of Bruck's work was virtually exclusively linguistic: I spent probably forty or fifty hours comparing Alisdair's English version with the German original, and suggesting a great many corrections and revisions, almost all of which Alisdair has taken over. I hope that the result, through Alisdair's efforts and my own, is a mainly accurate and idiomatic rendering of Bruck's German!

[Tom Mullally]

Where can one purchase the new copy of Bruck?  I have the German version, but I know several people who would like to have an English version.

Tom

[SC]

Alisdair's site is:

www.lateromanbronzecoins.com

You can order from there though dealers interested in stocking a few copies should probably contact Alisdair directly.

Shawn

[Andrew McCabe]

Borrowed from my library, Essays Blackburn: Early Mediaeval Monetary History, Studies in Memory of Mark Blackburn, eds Rory Naismith, Martin Allen, Elina Screen, Ashgate 2014, part of the Studies in Early Mediaeval Britain and Ireland series.

A substantial academic work, 650 pages, I borrowed it because Mark Blackburn was a rather famous and well respected numismatist, curator of the Fitzwilliam, before his untimely death in 2011. 30 essays on mediaeval coinage, of which seven essays on the use and circulation of currency are relevant to earlier periods as well. Lots of interesting stuff, and mostly dealing with coins in the context of hoards, archaeology, economic history etc. Likely of more interest to others than me.

Small coin was often the exception rather than the rule. There was no such thing in medieval England, for instance, suggesting that many transactions were barter-based. Small coin only appears in large quantities at the time of the Industrial Revolution, when the old village economy was breaking down. There are several hoard finds from Judea which suggest that people used the small coins to accumulate the money for the Temple tax, but how much they were used otherwise is unclear as always.

It's odd to start a new book announcement with quotes from other threads, but in this case, Essays Blackburn (very recently published) was also on the subject of money use in medieval times, and Robert's mention of money use in in medieval England recently shows it's a topic of current interest but perhaps without a great deal of reference material. So, two major volumes on money in medieval Europe is quite something. Being lazy, I'll just post the contents list of Essays Mayhew rather than commenting further. I should get around to doing the same thing for Essays Blackburn in time.

[Andrew McCabe]

There's a rush of popular books on Roman history for Christmas. I just ordered (for myself)

- Tom Holland, Dynasty, The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar (covers the Julio Claudians)
- Robert Harris, Dictator (Cicero in the 40s BC, contra Caesar and then Antony)
- Mary Beard, SPQR A History of Ancient Rome

Holland's new book supposedly comes out tomorrow, but what prompted me to look for it was a nice shiny pile of them already on sale in Waterstone's, Piccadilly. Then I looked to see was it cheaper on Amazon (it was, by a lot) and was offered the Harris and Beard books to pre-order. All in hardback of course.

[David Atherton]

There's a rush of popular books on Roman history for Christmas. I just ordered (for myself)

- Tom Holland, Dynasty, The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar (covers the Julio Claudians)
- Robert Harris, Dictator (Cicero in the 40s BC, contra Caesar and then Antony)
- Mary Beard, SPQR A History of Ancient Rome

Holland's new book supposedly comes out tomorrow, but what prompted me to look for it was a nice shiny pile of them already on sale in Waterstone's, Piccadilly. Then I looked to see was it cheaper on Amazon (it was, by a lot) and was offered the Harris and Beard books to pre-order.

These are all on my reading list too. In particular, I am looking forward to Beard's tome on the history of Rome. I wonder what her sceptical take on it will be?

[SC]

I understand that Dictator is the long awaited third part of Harris' Cicero trilogy that started in Imperium and continued in Lustrum.  I am going to have to back and re-read the other two volumes.  As I recall it was a fun and fascinating, though not uncontroversial portrayal of Cicero.

Shawn

[Andrew McCabe]

Some of you will have downloaded my paper on Roman Republican bronzes from Academia over the last few days. But it's always nicer to hold and read a book in its hardbound paper version.

I noticed in the back of the latest NAC sale catalog two new flyers for Essays Russo (wherein my lengthy paper was published) and for the RBW collection book. I show both flyers below (without the sales blurb) taken from a screenshot of the NAC auction pdf. I noticed that NAC has adjusted the pricing to reflect the fall in the euro and the relative strength of the pound and dollar - and is offering either of the books post-paid anywhere in the world for 120 euros (£88, $137). That compares extremely favourably with Fides (Essays Witschonke) which the ANS is offering at $275 or $190 for members plus shipping whereas Essays Russo and RBW include shipping. So if you've hesitated, this may be a good time to get them.

Some nice photos below.

[Andrew McCabe]

I've been browsing my copy of the new book by Mary Beard, SPQR. It's a history of Rome. 80% of its coverage is either Roman Republican history or general historical matters from the Republic onwards eg religion and constitutional matters. There's just a single chapter on the Roman Empire in fact specifically on the 14 emperors from Tiberius to Antoninus Pius where wisely the history of mankind ends. In format and contents it's truly innovative. It doesn't plod through all those events we've all read about countless times. Instead it assumes we've a basic knowledge of the course of history and presents us with a whole load of genuinely new insights that use new physical evidence eg inscriptions that are less well known. Like all good movies it does a flash-forward scene in the opening chapter, starting us near the end of the story in 63BC before becoming somewhat chronological for a while and then finishing on a thematic note. I expect to greatly enjoy it.

[Jay GT4]

Thanks for that Andrew.  I love Mary Beard's work.  Will pick this book up.

[David Atherton]

I've been following Beards' progress on this book for most of the year via her blog A Don's Life. Glad to hear it's met your critical approval Andrew. I'll pick up a copy in the next week or two.

Also, she was recently awarded a Leverhulme grant for a research project titled 'The Twelve Caesars'. Hmmmm ...

[PtolemAE]

Please use this topic to announce the publication of new numismatic, antiquity, and history books, and/or provide comments or reviews on new books.  

Three new books purchased at the XV International Numismatic Congress in Taormina in Sept. 2015...

A number of publishers - Spink, ANS, CNG, Vatican, etc. had 'booths' with lots and lots of numismatic books at the conference.  I got these three despite the additional weight and bulk just to get them back home

1. Le Monete Della Zecca Di Gela - Coins of the Mint of Gela
by Giancarlo Alteri and Eleonora Giampiccolo
Published by Libreria Editrice Vaticana (Vatican publishing company)
hardbound with dust jacket, 265 pages, many color plates including terrific enlargements of important coins
On the last day this publisher had their booth set up at the conference they offered this beautiful volume (full of Gela's man-headed bull coins, of course) for only TEN EUROS (!) So it was impossible to not get one...

2. Monete Tolemaiche Oltre L'Egitto (transl. 'Ptolemaic Coins Outside Egypt')
by Alessandro Cavagna (professor at Univ. of Milano and expert on Ptolemaic coinage)
published by Cisalpino Istituto Editoriale Universitario
paper, 355 pages, with a huge bibliography and list of citations concerning the find locations and data
A thorough examination of finds of Ptolemaic coins in many places outside Egypt - from Italy to Turkey to the Balkans, etc.  A great read even though it's in Italian.  Nice coverage of the recent discoveries about Ptolemaic (and imitation) coins minted in, and found in, Sicily.  Hot off the presses.  This makes an excellent companion to the phenomenal book by Mariangela Puglisi on isolated coin finds on Sicily, which includes many of the Ptolemaic-minted and Syracusan-imitative-Ptolemaic coins.

3.  SNG Italia - Agrigento - Maria Caccamo Caltabiano (professor of ancient numismatics at University of Messina and also president of the INC and organizer of the congress)
Although the cover says 1999, this is one I'd never seen.  Covers coins in the museum at Agrigento (ancient Akragas) on the southern coast of Sicily, site of the major Greek/Roman temple site 'Valle de Templi' (Valley of the Temples). 
hardbound, 87 pages, large SNG format, glossy pages with coin information on with pairs of facing information/plate pages as in other SNG volumes.  The publisher had 5 copies at their booth and I'd planned to get one on the last day but decided it might be unwise to wait - which turned out to be the correction decision so I purchased one right then and there when I saw it.  They sold all five.

PtolemAE

[mharlan]

In December Spink published my revised second edition of Roman Republican Moneyers and Their Coins 63 BCE-49 BCE and they are planning on having copies at the New York Show.

The following are notes that I made on the changes to the first edition.

This second edition comes twenty years after the first giving me time to digest some of the criticisms of the first edition as well as of the second book Roman Republican Moneyers and Their Coins 81 BCE-64 BCE published in 2012 and to rethink some of the interpretations and dating. Besides being more heavily illustrated, small changes or additions have been made to all the chapters, but significant changes have been made to the following chapters listed as they appear in this edition:

Chapter 2 Lucius Scribonius Libo: I have a reassessment of the Puteal Scribonianum using information on the Altar of Veius which was called to my attention by a reader, Claudio Scaetta from Rome, Italy.

Chapter 5 Marcus Aemilius Lepidus: I have a much fuller discussion of his two S•C coins and this has led to a re-dating of those two coins.

Chapter 12 Gaius Memmius: The identity of Gaius Memmius the imperator of the coin’s inscription is discussed in light of an inscription unknown to me at the time of the first edition.

Chapter 14 Marcus Plaetorius Cestianus: I had dated his seven coins to 68/7 in Roman Republian Moneyers and Their Coins 81 BCE- 64 BCE, but have now redated his five non-curule aedile S•C coins to 57 and added a revision of that portion of his chapter.

Chapter 19 Publius Licinius Crassus: I have added a much fuller discussion of his reverse design.

Chapter 20 Gaius Considius Nonianus: This moneyer was dated to 57 in the first edition. I have re-dated him to 55 and associated him with Crassus’ consulship.

Chapter 22 Publius Fonteius Capito: I have made a reassessment of the moneyer’s identity.

Chapter 23 Quintus Cassius Longinus: I have reconsidered the identification of the obverse head on one of the types Cassius minted.

Chapter 25 Marcus Valerius Messala: I have made a major reassessment of the interpretation of the reverse design.

Chapter 26 Quintus Pomponius Musa: I have redated his coins to ca. 52 and added a revision of his chapter from Roman Republican Moneyers and Their Coins 81 BCE- 64 BCE.

Chapter 30 Manius Acilius Glabrio: I have added a discussion on Caesar’s elephant coin.

Chapter 32 Quintus Sicinius: I have expanded the information on his joint issue with Coponius.

I have also added the Crawford numbers for the coins. They are now at the beginning of each chapter and appear elsewhere in the text in parentheses and are prefixed with RRC.

[altanbilgen]

Hi Everyone,

I want to announce the new book by Professor Oguz Tekin "Balance Weights in the Aegean World. Classical and Hellenistic Periods"

Historically, balance weights are as old as the balances themselves. Actually, balance and weight examples of Mesopotamian, Egyptian and Hittite civilisations are known from wall paintings, reliefs, papyri and collections. However, the scope of this book is the balance weights produced and used in the Aegean world during the Classical and Hellenistic periods. Balance weights were among the instruments of public sphere (instrumenta publica) of antiquity and they constitute an important group of antiquities worth studying for their unit marks, symbols, depictions, inscriptions and ornaments. However, balance weights have been among the most neglected artefacts within archaeological research. Certainly, this work at handbook level should not be expected to fill the gap entirely, but rather call attention to this field. The examples were chosen from the city-states in the Aegean world and cover only those which bear ethnic or symbol (parasemon).

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

    Scope, material, and sources
    History of research in the light of basic publications

1. AN OVERVIEW OF WEIGHTS

    Form, material, and manufacture
    Symbols (parasema) and other depictions
    Denominations
    Ethnic
    State guarantee (Demosion)

2. WEIGHT SYSTEMS, STANDARDS AND SOLON’S REFORM

    Weight systems
    Standards and changes in the standards
    Solon’s reform

3. MARKET PLACES AND MARKET CONTROLLERS

    Agoras and their functions
    Magistrates in charge of the agora and the weights

4. CITIES AND THEIR WEIGHTS

    Athens
    Corinth
    Olympia
    Olynthos
    Thasos
    Maroneia
    Ainos
    Lysimachia
    Bisanthe
    Byzantion
    Kalchedon
    Kyzikos
    Lampsakos
    Abydos
    Ilion
    Tenedos
    Gentinos
    Alexandria Troas
    Skepsis
    Myrina
    Kyme
    Smyrna
    Chios
    Kolophon
    Ephesos
    Priene
    Miletos
    Alabanda
    Herakleia under Latmos
    Rhodos

GENERAL EVALUATION
APPENDICES

    Appendix 1: Balances, steelyards and steelyard weights
    Appendix 2: Civic weights under the Roman Empire

ABBREVIATIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
IMAGE SOURCES
TECHNICAL ABBREVIATIONS
GLOSSARY
PLATES

Where to buy,
https://www.zerobooksonline.com/eng/product_details.asp?cat=1&subcat=10&product=17491

[tetsubu]

Recently, a new book, connected with Roman Numismatics, was published on Amazon: “Coinage of Roman Empresses, Volume I, Antonia Minor – Didia Clara, 41 – 193 AD”. This is the catalogue, which describes 295 denarii, struck in the name of Roman empresses. Each denarius is supplemented with a photo. The denarii are divided according to the reverse type, and the frequency of these denarii is given.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1547152419/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1496593325&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Coinage+of+Roman+Empresses

[Joss]

Next tome of the HGC series by Oliver Hoover, this time on Italy. 
https://www.cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=368948

[Anaximander]

The Royal Numismatic Society has brought to our attention that a new edition of RIC II (Part 3), is available for pre-order at Spink.  

The notice can be found on the RNS site (Publications):  https://numismatics.org.uk/society-publications-2/.

I have the second revised edition of Volume II (Part 1).  I am unclear on the availability of Part 2. Perhaps Part 3 was ready before Part 2.  Stranger things than that have happened...

Anaximander.

[curtislclay]

Last I heard, over five years ago, B. Woytek was working on Nerva and Trajan, Richard Abdy on Hadrian, and all three emperors were to be treated in a single new volume, RIC revised II.2.

Apparently it was decided that the planned single volume should be split into two. Woytek's new RIC II.2 on Nerva and Trajan has certainly not yet appeared.

[Anaximander]

I'm not seeing the new RIC II edition at my local bookseller (nor will I). I had expected a bit more of a groundswell of news and offers, but am not hearing or seeing anything.  My usual numismatic booksellers in the U.S. do not seem to be on the front line of this one.  Ordering from the UK is a tad annoying, as I have paid dearly for shipments (GBP 25 in one instance, and two ill-packaged book shipments badly damaged).  Perhaps copies will appear in the Forum bookshop!

Another desired pick-up for 2020 will be the book on Bactrian coinage, announced by the ANS for publication this year, along with several others:

Royal Coinage in Hellenistic Bactria, by Simon Glenn.
The Tiflis Dirhams of Mongke Khan, by Kirk Bennett.
Old Regime France and its Jetons, by Jim McClellan.

Anaximander

[leseullunique]

Dear friends, it's time for me to inform you about my first book, freshly arrived

You can find it near Paul Francis Jacquier on ma-shops or directly near the editor (CEN) on this link

"Le monnayage impérial de Gordien III (238-244 après J.C.)

794 references, 714 illustrations, 162 pages with all types and variant I knew in november 2019

[curtislclay]

Congratulations!

Is there anywhere we can see a few sample pages of your text?

[leseullunique]

Congratulations!

Is there anywhere we can see a few sample pages of your text?

Thank you Curtis,

Here are some pages (sestertius, silverquinarius and bronze medallions)