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Author Topic: limes falsum/ancient imitation  (Read 4726 times)

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Offline Andrew McCabe

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limes falsum/ancient imitation
« on: July 05, 2012, 05:22:52 pm »
It is not a limes falsum, but an ancient imitation....

This reminds me why one of my pet peeves is one of my pet peeves. The pet peeve in question is, using obscure Latin, French or German terms in place of plain English alternatives, thus clouding communications and obscuring the meaning, leading to oxymorons such as that above (which helcaraxe was only quoting...). Surely a "limes falsum" (meaning, so far as I am aware, a base-metal ancient imitation of a denarius, typically found in border regions), is, by definition, an ancient imitation?

I know I shouldn't go on and on and on endlessly on this subject (I even sometimes edit messages which I quote, to replace bad misspellings of the French word for "stuffed" with "plated coin", because I can't abide having my message include a misspelled and misunderstood term, even within a quote), but I'm a grumpy old man. So I guess I will go on and on about it.

For all who are younger than me in spirit: I really encourage you to use English words to described coin attributes, even when there is a handy Aramaic or Sabine term readily to hand that can delightfully confuse things.

Offline helcaraxe

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limes falsum/ancient imitation
« Reply #1 on: July 05, 2012, 05:33:00 pm »

This reminds me why one of my pet peeves is one of my pet peeves. The pet peeve in question is, using obscure Latin, French or German terms in place of plain English alternatives, thus clouding communications and obscuring the meaning, leading to oxymorons such as that above (which helcaraxe was only quoting...). Surely a "limes falsum" (meaning, so far as I am aware, a base-metal ancient imitation of a denarius, typically found in border regions), is by definition an ancient imitation?

An oxymoron? Or rather a tautology? Or a pleonasm? ;-)

Well, I am already stopping. Have a good night! ;-)

Semper pax,
helcaraxe

postscriptum: Not every ancient imitation is a limes falsum, but every limes falsum is an ancient imitation. ;-)

Offline Andrew McCabe

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limes falsum/ancient imitation
« Reply #2 on: July 05, 2012, 05:33:49 pm »

postscriptum: Not every ancient imitation is a limes falsum, but every limes falsum is an ancient imitation. ;-)

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Offline quisquam

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limes falsum/ancient imitation
« Reply #3 on: July 05, 2012, 05:37:53 pm »
'Limesfalsum' is a well established numismatic term, introduced by numismatist Georg Elmer in the '30s of the last century. So why shouldn't we use it?

Stefan

BTW: Limesfalsa are NOT base-metal ancient imitations of  denarii. They are casts of middle bronzes and sestertii, often heavily underweight and poorly executed.

Offline Andrew McCabe

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limes falsum/ancient imitation
« Reply #4 on: July 05, 2012, 05:42:47 pm »
'Limesfalsum' is a well established numismatic term, introduced by numismatist Georg Elmer in the '30s of the last century. So why shouldn't we use it?

Stefan

BTW: Limesfalsa are NOT base-metal ancient imitations of  denarii. They are casts of middle bronzes and sestertii, often heavily underweight and poorly executed.


I think your explanation, which is news to me, explains exactly why we shouldn't use it. It seems I've confused a Limes denarius with a Limes Falsum. The point is, had the English word "ancient cast imitations of sestertii" been used, then everyone on the board would have understood, and not just the small number who know the (obscure to me) 1930's Latin term. The obscure Latin term seems designed to hide information. Limes Falsum is composed of two words, one (Falsum) people can probably guess at, the other (Limes) people either will not generally understand as meaning border areas, or will misunderstand as referring to the base metal denariii. Even if you correctly understand the meaning of both words, you are still completely in the dark and would have no logical reason to imagine that it means "ancient cast imitations of sestertii".

Use English words only, and we will all be able to understand each other, at all times.

Offline quisquam

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limes falsum/ancient imitation
« Reply #5 on: July 05, 2012, 06:08:03 pm »
I see your point. Limesfalsa is not a well chosen term anyway. They were probably not meant to deceive but money of necessity and I'm not sure if they are really necessarily from the borders of the empire.

Stefan

Offline Andrew McCabe

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limes falsum/ancient imitation
« Reply #6 on: July 06, 2012, 03:22:51 am »
I see your point. Limesfalsa is not a well chosen term anyway. They were probably not meant to deceive but money of necessity and I'm not sure if they are really necessarily from the borders of the empire.

Stefan

Yes, I agree. I debated for some time, with a fellow enthusiast, calling well-made imitations of Roman Republican bronzes "locally-made small change", indicating a semi-official nature. Sometimes, the origin of well-made imitations is known (e.g. the bronzes produced in Southern Spain, or the Campanian types recorded by Stannard), and you can't escape the conclusion that they were probably officially sanctioned, or at least not officially forbidden. Sometimes they may have been produced at a regular mint, copying older types in lighter weight, but intended to be issued in military pay or by local magistrates. "Local Spanish small change issue" or "local Campanian small change issue" probably suits. "Money of necessity" is also a useful term, suggesting money that was needed, but not supplied by government. The same logic might apply to the imitations of Claudian asses in England, or the imitations of Dupondii of Caesar/Octavian in Gaul, or to the light-weight overstrikes, in reasonable style, struck over captured Carthaginian coins during the second Punic war. The struggle is to find words that indicates these coins may not have been produced with deceptive intent (i.e. are not really forgeries) but were money of necessity, intended to boost necessary small change supply, in a manner that would support the local economy and not damage the government (assuming such coins would not be accepted as tax revenues). But not all imitations are money of necessity - we need to clearly distinguish ancient forgeries (intended to deceive, such as plated coins), or barbaric lightweight issues that probably never circulated anywhere near a Roman military town. I think this struggle to find plain words to describe something that we don't really understand, is a worthwhile one. It is a struggle for meaning, and that is a noble cause, best not disguised by jargon.

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: limes falsum/ancient imitation
« Reply #7 on: July 06, 2012, 03:55:20 am »
I think the coin which started this discussion (now  in a different thread, though our discussion on what it should be called seems relevant to this thread about "what to call things") is a lovely item. helcaraxe hit the nail on the head with an earlier post which described it as a barbaric imitation of a countermarked coin, or rather a barbaric countermark on a genuine coin. The countermark seems to be rather well made, even if retrograde.

Offline rover1.3

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Re: limes falsum/ancient imitation
« Reply #8 on: July 06, 2012, 04:20:40 am »
Andrew McCabe, you are very good at discussing interesting things with people but you often change the subject into several directions, often irrelevant to each other, and as a result gigantic topics rise, full of different subjects, topics which are often difficult to follow and difficult for anyone who is interested in one of them to make out and come to a conclusion about the particular branch he is interested in.
You 'd better start a new topic each time you think something is worth discussing and it can be developed. In this way we can keep things in order.

Offline SC

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Re: limes falsum/ancient imitation
« Reply #9 on: July 06, 2012, 04:41:47 am »
Interesting points Andrew.  I agree that clarity is good and cutting through the antiquarian fog often helps attract new students to this subject.  Nevertheless it is important to understand as many of these terms as possible.

As an aside I was recently translating bits out of Numicmatica Carnuntina - the study of the coin finds from Carnuntum in Austria.  My German is so limited that I need to do machine translation and then clean it up.

Anyway, here are some points they make about Limesfalsa (I will use the term here as it is taken from a German language work after all).

Most of this comes from section 2.4.4.2 of Numismatica Carnuntina.

Numismatica Carnuntina defines Limesfalsa as cast copies and imitations of large bronze coins of the late 2nd and early 3rd centuries AD found in the Danubian limes (border) regions including Carnuntum.

Interestingly, based on the finds at Carnuntum they appear to be primarily Sestertii.  There were 251 Sestertii, 118 Asses and only 17 Dupondii.  There were also 34 that were impossible to categorize. 

They are almost always lighter than the originals.  The average of the Limesfalsa Sestertii is only 11.12 grams.  The average of the official Sestertii from the same period is 22.03 grams.  Thus the Limesfalsa Sestertii are roughly half the weight.  With the Asses the difference is less – 7.17 grams versus 9.75 grams.  (In my experience the light weight is because they are much thinner than the originals.)

Overall the Limesfalsa Sestertii coin "originals" range from a Domitian to an Otacilia Severa.  However, the bulk are from Marcus Aurelius to Severus Alexander.  The "originals" of the Asses range even further – from a bronze from Asia Minor from 28 BC to a Julia Mamaea.  There were also Limesfalsa of Gordian III’s provincial bronzes from Nicaea found at Carnuntum.

According to the Numismatica Carnuntina the function this imitative coinage is very controversial.  It is clear from the quality that they were not forgeries for deception purposes.  Like cast copies of Julio-Claudian Asses and Sestertii and even the iron coinage found at Carnuntum, the Limesfalsa were the result of local measures to meet the requirements for small change around daily market trade.

Shawn

SC
(Shawn Caza, Ottawa)

Offline PeterD

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Re: limes falsum/ancient imitation
« Reply #10 on: July 06, 2012, 06:16:28 am »
Unfortunately even plain English gets mis-used. My own pet peeve is the use of the word 'barbaric'. The Collins English dictionary defines the word as an adjective meaning 1. of or characteristic of barbarians. 2. primitive, or unsophisticated; unrestrained. 3. brutal, foreign, outlandish. Some of those definitions could apply to a coin, but which ones?

Just as an example, for the coin that started this thread (which has been described as 'barbaric'), was it made by barbarians? Only if you consider Britains or Gauls barbarians, but it may have been made by Romans. Is it 'primitive' or 'unsophisticated'? Maybe, but no more so than 'official' counterstamped coins. It's difficult for a lump of metal to be 'brutal' or 'outlandish'. Maybe 'foreign' but not in this case.

I know I'm being pickey but I believe that a description, where possible, should be un-ambiguous.

The use of the word has evolved from the term 'barbarous radiates', which was used by early numismatists to describe unofficial radiates of the late 3rd century because they (wrongly) thought that they were made by 'barbarians' - that is to say the Danes, Saxons and Angles that moved into Britain after the Romans left.
Peter, London

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Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: limes falsum/ancient imitation
« Reply #11 on: July 06, 2012, 08:34:49 am »
Andrew McCabe, you are very good at discussing interesting things with people but you often change the subject into several directions, often irrelevant to each other, and as a result gigantic topics rise, full of different subjects, topics which are often difficult to follow and difficult for anyone who is interested in one of them to make out and come to a conclusion about the particular branch he is interested in.
You 'd better start a new topic each time you think something is worth discussing and it can be developed. In this way we can keep things in order.


Yes I do. I'm inclined to branch out, and go off at tangents, and disorder things. Sometimes, a posting suggests in my mind a tangential response, that would completely lack context if started as a separate topic (and thus, I would never post if it were a separate topic). So, I tend to reply anyways, and let the topic wander. I'm not sure it does any harm to let topics develop in unpredictable directions. That's how conversations develop. In this particular case, my original note seemed to me to be more-or-less on topic (replying to comments made), and my subsequent replies were related to the shift-in-direction that this caused the topic to take. Though I must admit that shift was my fault. I tend to regard Forvm as a conversation among coin nuts that might go off in unpredictable directions. But if Forvm's rules include "don't deviate" and "stay on topic" than I apologise for my deviant nature, and would try to keep my deviant thoughts inside my own head, rather than releasing them to the wild.

Offline Andrew McCabe

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Re: limes falsum/ancient imitation
« Reply #12 on: July 06, 2012, 08:45:51 am »
Unfortunately even plain English gets mis-used. My own pet peeve is the use of the word 'barbaric'. ...
I know I'm being pickey but I believe that a description, where possible, should be un-ambiguous.
...

Yes I agree 'barbaric' is ambiguous. To my mind, the word evokes Picasso rather than Michelangelo - coins whose engraving is not in classical Greek/Roman style, and whose depiction of persons and animals is stylized and not naturalistic. But that's my mental depiction, and others might have different ones. The mere fact that a coin was not made by a Roman does not justify it being called barbaric. I would never regard the staters of Tincommius as barbaric (two examples pictured below).

I guess my intervention on this topic was intended as an appeal to everyone to try and use your vernacular language (German for German speakers, English for English speakers etc.) at all times when describing numismatic topics. If you struggle to find the correct words to use in your vernacular language, that is very probably because there is a point of numismatic confusion that needs clearing up, or whose uncertainty needs highlighting. I think that is a very good thing!!! Sticking to your own language and familiar words is, I think, the path to achieving the greatest clarity on numismatic topics.

But it is a matter of choice. If you are sure you understand a foreign language term, and that it presents no risk to understanding, then stick with it. This is only my personal viewpoint!

NB aren't the Tincommius staters (below) the most beautiful coins imaginable!!! (tangential comment)

Offline Molinari

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Re: limes falsum/ancient imitation
« Reply #13 on: July 06, 2012, 11:36:54 am »
Andrew McCabe, you are very good at discussing interesting things with people but you often change the subject into several directions, often irrelevant to each other, and as a result gigantic topics rise, full of different subjects, topics which are often difficult to follow and difficult for anyone who is interested in one of them to make out and come to a conclusion about the particular branch he is interested in.
You 'd better start a new topic each time you think something is worth discussing and it can be developed. In this way we can keep things in order.


I guess the coin emthusiast's ideal interlocutor is the moderator's worst nightmare!

I think most would agree that the tangents are more than welcome, but I think we would also agree that rover's dedication as a moderator is outstanding. 

Thank you both for doing what it is you do, even if it makes your lives difficult at times :)

Offline Skyler

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Re: limes falsum/ancient imitation
« Reply #14 on: July 06, 2012, 02:59:45 pm »
 A BIG THANK YOU FROM ME as well speaking English primarily, collecting coins that contain Latin and Greek and then becoming confused with different translations of French and German "terms" for attribution.

Offline helcaraxe

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Re: limes falsum/ancient imitation
« Reply #15 on: July 07, 2012, 03:41:02 am »
I agree with the intention of avoiding confusion and making clear definitions of terms, may they be German or French or Englisch or whatsoever. Nevertheless I think that none of our Great European languages can stand alone and indeed none does: English has taken over a lot of French words (i. e. of latin origin) after William the Conquerer and so have the others. I think we should accept our common heritage especially in numismatics. "Knielauf" will be "Knielauf" and no harm done.

Semper pax
helcaraxe

 

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