Books on Roman Egyptian Coins?

[iwaniw]

Apparently a few books are available at www.elibron.com -- namely:

BMC catalog #4 above (The Forni reprint will likely be a better copy, but more expensive)

Hunter (volume 3) #11 above

Mionnet (volume 6 only)  #12 above (also at google books for free)

von Sallet  #48 above (I could not specifically locate this at the site, but a link said this was available at Elibron).

** I recently saw a used edition for sale at a cheap price and I tried to purchase it, but someone beat me to it.

Michael Covili (www.coinsofromanegypt.org) will be this adding this book to his site once he has converted the images I sent to him.

There is actually a few more references to add to this thread. As well, Britannicus has noted that a new Alexandrian catalogue (in German) is being published in March. Available at amazon.de It likely is a private collection.

Add: If you search you may be able to locate Geissen's volumes 2 and 3. A full set of 5 volumes is available, but at a price of $1500.

I also saw a copy of Vogt for sale at $130, which might be the first edition.

Iwaniw

[iwaniw]

Another interesting item which can be downloaded at the Digital Library Numis. It is listed incorrectly under  the "Greek--Alexandria" section.

65. Dutilh, E. D. J. — "Monnaies des Nomes ou Anciennes Préfectures de l'Egypte du Médaillier du Musée d'Antiquités de Ghizeh . Revista Italiana di Numismatica 7 (1894), p. 35-48, pl. 2-3

The Ghizeh museum has 70 (plus 3 lead tokens). Three coins were added too late to be catalogued. Dutilh provides a table with references to Mionnet, Feuardent and the BMC. Remember that the Dattari collection was published later in 1901. Twelve coins not found in the three collections are described and pictured. I have not worked through this reference to determine which items are unpublished, but there are definitely some.

Iwaniw

[iwaniw]

66. Ursula Kampmann/Thomas Ganschow: Die Münzen der römischen Munzstätte Alexandria (2008)

This German catalog is primarily based on the Dattari collection, although the Köln collection as well as the Roman Provincial Coinage (Parts 1 and 2) were also consulted. It has numerous photos taken from various auction catalogs. Prices are given for two grades.

The nome section is listed at the end and is organized by nome. It is also well illustrated.

Its listings are by ruler, then regnal year, then by denomination. The reverse types are alphabetical in each group.

Its organization and unusual numbering system makes it a little more difficult to locate a specific coin-- especially if the date is in question, however, it is generally easier to locate a coin then in, for example, the Dattari collection.

Since no coins are cited from Dattari/Savio, it appears that volume was not consulted.

It's surprising that pictures of a few rulers are missing.

It's an excellent book.

Iwaniw

[iwaniw]

67. Staatlichen Museen, Berlin: On-line database.

http://www.smb.museum/ikmk/

This is the collection cited in Vogt. There are some additions to the coins cited in Vogt.

Alexandrian coins from Berlin collection pictured on website (498 coins pictured to date)

To search for individuals, try this type of search.

alexandria: Geta (for coins of Geta)

Annia Faustina (8)
Antoninus Pius (14)
Aquila Severa (15)
Caracalla (7)
Diocletian (3)
Elagabalus (52)
Gallienus (2)
Geta (3)
Hadrian (9)
Iulia Domna (6)
Iulia Maesa (12)
Iulia Mamaea (45)
Iulia Paula (15)
Iulia Soaemias (6)
Macrinus (1)
Maximinus Thrax (69)
Maximus (15)
Nero (2)
Otho (8)
Orbiana (1)
Septimius Severus (18)
Severus Alexander (180)
Vaballath (1)
Zenobia (2)

At present, all the coins from Elagabalus to Julia Mamaea are pictured, with a few other rulers/wives.

Iwaniw

[iwaniw]

68: Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum: Volume XII The Hunterian Museum University of Glasgow Part II Roman Provincial Coins Cyprus - Egypt [Hardcover]
John Goddard (Author) 2007/2008 (list price 99 pounds)

This volume contains the complete Hunter collection of Alexandrian coins, updating and replacing the George MacDonald volume 3. The collection can be viewed at the syllogue Nummorum Graecorum website ( SNG uk volume 12 part 2). A very important collection, worth purchasing, especially for the pictures.

to locate at Forum:

Forum website awards---numismatic excellence---fitzwilliam museum-- links--- SNG

I ordered the book but have not seen it yet. From the website listings it appears to correct a number of errors. It missed correcting this "Claudius II" coin to Carinus Augustus.

Iwaniw

[iwaniw]

69. Zoëga, Georg: Numi Aegyptii Imperatorii Prostantes In Museo Borgiano Velitris (1787)

This is the earliest Alexandrian catalog, listing the Borgiano museum collection along with coins found in all the collections/books prior to 1787. It is written in Latin. In general, the reverse directions are not given, even for the Borgiano specimens. It identifies the items held in each hand of the reverse type described. Mionnet obviously copied a lot of information from this book for his books. When citing Zoëga, Mionnet failed to look at the engraved plates, which provide additional information, such as the direction of the reverse type. For example, plate 14 shows a drachm of Commodus Caesar of year 19: Helios standing right in quadriga, holds whip and globe— not the Geissen 2201 "Helios in quadriga left", which is likely Selene or Eos holding torch?

It has an early bibliography of 50+ books that were consulted.

It has 22 engraved plates of the coins in the Borgiano museum.

Available at googlebooks as well as a print to order book by Kessingers (via Amazon). Price is about $29.

It is a very important book and worth purchasing.

Iwaniw

[curtislclay]

Iwaniw mentions above:

"48. von Sallet, Alfred. Die Daten der Alexandrinischer Kaisermünzen. Berlin 1870.

This is an extremely rare book to locate. Its purpose is to document all the regnal dates in which Alexandrian coins were issued. It cites a few extremely rare coins to support some of the dates. It is dated but still has some useful information."

I would add that von Sallet's short book (pp. 102) is still most valuable for determining what range of regnal dates appear on the Alexandrian coins of each emperor and empress, and what chronological conclusions may be drawn from that evidence.

Von Sallet also gives a valuable and critical appraisal of all important works on Alexandrian coinage published prior to 1870. I like the following praise of Mionnet, contrasted to the unreliable Sestini: (my translation from the German)

"Sestini's listing of the dates that appear on Alexandrian coins is worthless to the historian, because it almost always includes all of the uncertain and inadequately attested dates reported by unreliable sources.

"Mionnet's Description stands in sharp contrast to Sestini's misleading writings. A diplomatic precision, attentiveness, and reliability characterize all parts of Mionnet's work, including the sections on Alexandrian coins. Mionnet's authority for all coins, and especially for Alexandrian coins, is unrivaled, far exceeding that of Zoega and Eckhel, as far as accuracy in describing the coins and reporting their dates is concerned. Of course the gigantic task that Mionnet undertook, which one would have thought would exceed the powers of a single author, left him no time to investigate chronological questions and their relationship to the dates that appear on Alexandrian coins. Therefore he did make the occasional small error, for example taking over from other works dates which are historically impossible, without doubting their accuracy, though always naming the source. But in general it can be said that Mionnet's Description is the most accurate and reliable numismatic work that has ever been written."

And this, regarding the usefulness of dealers' lists and auction catalogues:

"As a rule the lists and catalogues published in Germany are very poor and totally useless, whereas those from England, and particularly the most recent ones from France, are diligent and accurate. These recent French publications, for example the Dupré, Gréau, and Laborde catalogues, have been equipped with outstanding plates and are reference works of lasting value."

[jon gress]

von Sallet, Die Daten der Alexandrinischen Kaisermünzen is available online at:
http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/resolve/display/bsb10741878.html

[iwaniw]

70. French collection: Bibliothèque nationale de France is available on line: www.bnf.fr

There are instructions on-line on how to search for items, but here's some quick help.

1. On home page, go to the bottom of the page and click on the "C" to the right of Gallica.

2. Put:  Alexandrie monnaie      in the search field along with the name of the ruler, in French.

3. Select items to view and press Voir ..  to see items.

4. I have had problems figuring out how to easily view the next 20 items, so I just back click to first 20 items list, deselect all items, then go to page 2, select next 20, etc.

5. Pictures can be downloaded. For some reason, I had to later resave the jpeg/jpg in my photo editing program (as jpeg/jpg) in order to combine the two images.

The French collection is listed in Mionnet, along with other collections. The errors in the French collection have not all been corrected, which is actually helpful in determining the Mionnet specimen that is cited in the French collection.

**Note that some coins are incorrectly placed under other rulers, so it is very easy to miss locating them.

*** Use these search strings to locate the nome coins:

Monnaie d'Égypte (nômes)

Monnaie d'Égypte (nôme)

The Trajan nomes issues were not put in the SNG France Trajan part.

It's an important collection.

Iwaniw

[jmuona]

I would like to advertise the Alexandria part of my gallery, in case you have not seen it:

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=4420

You will find 16 different types of Alexandrian Otho coins there - the drachm, one of the ten tetradrachms and one of the two obols are missing. Not a book, but useful for seeing the types and the variation in weights etc within denominations.

s.
Jyrki Muona

[iwaniw]

71.  Angelo Geissen and Manfred Weber: Untersuchungen zu ägyptischen Nomenprägungen.

Zeitschriff für Papyrologie und Epigraphik.

Teil I: 144 (2003), p. 277-300
Teil II: 147 (2004), p. 259-280
Teil III: 149 (2004), p. 283-306
Teil IV: 151 (2005), p. 279-305
Teil V: 153 (2005), p. 291-316
Teil VI: 155 (2006), p. 271-300
Teil VII: 157 (2006), p. 277-304
Teil VIII: 158 (2007), p. 271-300
Teil IX: 160 (2007), p. 275-300
Teil X: 164 (2008), p. 277-305

Originally one could purchase the complete PDF set of articles from the publishers. The articles have just been published in book form at a price of 124 Euros:

COINAGE DIE ALEXANDRINISCHEN GAUMÜNZEN DER RÖMISCHEN KAISERZEIT  (2013).

This is the most important set of articles (and now book) covering the Nome coinage. It describes 460 coins and almost all of the coins are pictured on its 30 plates. It has up-to-date research on the deities worshiped in the individual nomes which is used to identify the reverse types.

All nome collectors should have this book.


Iwaniw

[iwaniw]

72.  Musei Theupoli antiqua numismata olim collecta a Ioan. Domin. Theupolo aucta & edita a Laurentio & Federico fratribus Theupolis. Venetiis 1736 (Vienna collection)

This is an early collection written in latin. The Alexandrian coins are in volume 2 (part VII, pages 1097 to 1196). The Alexandrian coins are cited in Zoega. There may be coins not cited by Zoega, as Zoega might cite the earliest listing of the coin from an earlier collection.

The catalogue gives a description of what is being held in each hand of the reverse type but fails to describe the direction the figure faces.

The 2 volume set can be downloaded at archive.org: search for: musei theupoli

The non-Alexandrian sections of this volume are very interesting.

Iwaniw

[iwaniw]

The Dattari collection (in two volumes) in PDF format, is available for free at archive.org


Iwaniw

[Joe Sermarini]

Someone please post the link.  I will put the link on the Dattari NumisWiki page.

[Pekka K]

https://archive.org/details/moneteimperialig01datt

https://archive.org/details/moneteimperialig02datt

Pekka K

[Joe Sermarini]

Done.  If you ever forget the URL, just go to NumisWiki.

[helvetica]

A university in Italy has kindly put volume I (Tiberius to Crispina) of Savio's
"Katalog der alexandrinischen Münzen" from the Schledehaus Collection in
Osnabrück Museum online:

https://iris.unive.it/retrieve/handle/10278/25953/22997/Katalog%20der%20Alexandrinischen%20M%C3%BCnzen_1.pdf

Looking for volume 2!

[iwaniw]

72.  A Catalogue of the Roman Provicial Coins from the Alexandrian Mint in the Graeco-Roman Museum in Alexandria:  1. The issues of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty (30 BC – AD 68)

by Hans-Christoph Noeske (and others)

This is the first volume of two (the second one will cover coins up to the end of Trajan). At the present time the Greco-Roman Museum is closed and the numismatic collections are no longer accessible for study. This is a project that has been in the works for over 40 years and the number of individuals involved in the project is large.

The first volume pictures 2689 coins (on 97 plates), most of them duplicates. The actual number of coins is a little over 200. It is not a real coin catalogue but more of a cross-reference to RPC. Due to the source and condition of the coins, it likely is the only suitable method of publishing them.

The important coins in this volume are the Octavian/Augustus and Nero bronze issues. Some die identities have been identified but for some reason no die identities of the most common Nero coin: Alexandria bust right, LIB were found.

The main importance of this volume is the weights and sizes of the coins.

It appears to be a very accurate “catalogue”.


Iwaniw

[iwaniw]

73.  Roman Provincial Coinage: IX: Trajan Decius to Aemilian. 2016. by Anthony Hostein and Jerome Mairat.

The Alexandrian part is coins 2220-2333. It includes a few new obverse inscription varieties as well as a new reverse type for Trajan Decius: Helios and Selene busts jugate right of year 1, which originated from the Curtis collection (purchased after his original collection was sold). It is a short 4 year span for this RPC part.


Iwaniw

[Curtis JJ]

A couple things, hope all this is okay here (and that I didn't already post this somewhere here?):

I've created a page on my collection site to help others research important pre-2000 auction catalogs that feature coins of Roman Egypt (Alexandrian), and that are available online (about 40 catalogs and other private collections, most with 100-500 Alexandrian coins illustrated; I chose pre-2000 because many of the most important auctions are not indexed in ACSearch or Coinarchives, etc.):

"20th Cent. Sales of Alexandrian Coins Online" = https://conservatoricoins.com/alexandrian/

To be clear, the page is specifically about auction catalogs, not books or articles. I use it for provenance research or to find examples from well-known collections. But there are other uses for auction catalogs.
(I was inspired to it by seeing Warren Esty's and Steve Moulding's pages on auction catalogs; their sites linked below.)





All links below are on one page; they're just to different sections so readers can jump ahead to whatever's important to them.

Skipping down to the "Online Auctions, Annotated List" [LINK], I've included a list of about 35 or 40 of the most "important" 20th century auction catalogs of Roman Egypt, Alexandrian coins that are available online. Most include at least 100 lots of Alexandrian, some fewer, others up to 500+ illustrated. For each catalog I've included basic info. about the auction & the consignor/collection (when avail.), and summarized the number of lots &/or plates of Alexandrian coins. Occasionally with additional details.

These are excerpted from a much larger annotated list of old auction catalogs online, so I may have occasionally left in additional notes about the auction when cutting/pasting.
I'm still working on all this, including editing. But I figured it's not going to be perfect, so best to go ahead and share it now before the next new technology comes along and renders it obsolete!

If you don't care about all of my annotations (or the dates of the auctions, etc.), I've also included a "Quick, Ultra-Abbreviated List" [LINK] of ~37 links (I think -- I'm still adding, so maybe more).

I've also listed most of the hard copy Alexandrian catalogs in my library, incl. those that are NOT online; let me know if you ever need to check a reference, that's why I have them. (Or if you have one I don't that you want to sell/trade!)

There are bibliographical materials about sale literature for Alexandrian coins, including external links to others' bibliographies or annotated lists.

One purpose is to make provenance research easier, so I've also included notes on & links to other private Alexandrian collections that have been dispersed (but not available in PDF auction catalogs), such as Col. J. Curtis, G. Dattari, Keith Emmett (cat. by Zack "Beast" Beasley).


Steve M. may have many/most or these catalogs linked as well:  https://www.rnumis.com/frontpage.php
Warren Esty has a set of annotations for many of these same sales:  http://augustuscoins.com/ed/catalogs  AND   http://augustuscoins.com/ed/SevAlex/



Another:

Last year I already posted separately here in "Books and References" to ask (Any info about Figari-Mosconi (2017) on the Dattari Collection?), but I'll keep the request alive here...
 
Giuseppe Figari and Massimo Mosconi's (2017) Duemilla Monete della Collezione Dattari , Genoa: Circ. Numis. Astengo).

If anyone ever has a lead on a copy (or many copies!), I'm all in. (I've tried the numismatic club/"circolo" that published it a couple times, but will eventually try again.)


Finally:
A glamour shot showing some of my reference volumes (the auction catalogs weren't photogenic enough!) on coins of Roman Egypt/Alexandria (and a pair of Hadrians for scale):