Numismatics. Among the general public, the word itself conjures up uncertainty as to its meaning. Stamp collecting is often a first guess. Equally worrisome for numismatists is that in academia numismatics is considered a highly specialised subject, which appears rarely relevant to other fields. The book under review by H., who is well known for his numismatic work on Alexander the Great and Bactria, presents an attempt to address these issues.
The book is divided into a preface, ten chapters with footnotes and an extensive, up-to-date bibliography. Chapter 1 is an introductory and at times amusing overview of the many forms that money can take. Chapter 2, ‘From the Coin's Point of View’, illustrates how H. tries to make numismatics more accessible. He argues that various scientific theories might help us understand coinage better, and in this chapter a form of animism is introduced to explain various aspects of coinage. A penny jar, for example, in which hundreds of coins might be kept, helps these objects escape destruction and thus survive. The coins themselves are seen as opting for such Darwinian behaviour. Another explanatory model taken from the scientific world is based on Richard Dawkins's ‘The Selfish Gene’. Each coin is a memeplex, which contains memes that compete for the survival of the fittest. To clarify this thought experiment, H. argues that coins are round since this gives them the greatest possibility of survival, as they roll ‘almost undetected until settling quietly into dark corners’ (p. 24). As H. states, ‘the roundness meme aims only to improve its own odds of survival’ (p. 25). While this idea of explaining coins is ingenious, it is questionable whether it serves the purpose of the book of making numismatics more accessible. If we look at the case of the ‘round’ coin, some of H.'s assumptions are debatable. Many coins made before the advent of machine-struck coins are not round and would not easily move as described. More importantly, one wonders whether concepts of animism or evolution provide a better understanding of coinage to a person unfamiliar with numismatics. Coin finds also receive this ‘biological’ treatment under the header of ‘Hidden Treasure’. We read, for example, that just as among hatchling sea turtles only the best survive, the same is true for coins, and as illustration a rare tetradrachm of Amphipolis is shown. Even if one were to accept the notion of a ‘best’ coin, this playful thought experiment is misleading. Any survey of numismatic archaeological data from excavations illustrates clearly that common coins exist (‘survive’). More biology is introduced in the section ‘How coins repopulate’, where the concept of dies as minting a coin is described as ‘male’ and ‘female’ dies producing offspring, where the reverse (the female) wears out more quickly than the obverse (the male); and to add confusion to all this, even in this context, a coin is often referred to as memeplex. What is supposed to provide ‘greater depth of understanding’ makes this second chapter barely comprehensible or, as in the case of the female/male analogy for dies, simply annoying.
The remaining chapters follow along more conventional lines. In Chapter 3, ‘The Invention of Coins’, readers find an introduction of early money in Asia Minor, alongside some basic monetary theories, concepts of mints, mining and coin design. A good overview of the rapid development of coinage from its first appearance in the seventh century onwards is based on current scholarship. Chapter 4, ‘The First Numismatists’, presents a rather quirky account of why numismatics matters. H.'s wide definition of a numismatist makes various authors such as Aristophanes, Plutarch and Suetonius as well as historical figures such as Augustus, Jesus, Shakespeare and others experts on numismatic matters. Thus, H. attempts to make readers forget about the traditional image of numismatics and focus on the various connections between coin as an object and the concept of money. Chapter 5, ‘The Second Wave’, deals with the rediscovery of numismatics from the Renaissance to Joseph Eckhel, the father of numismatics. Many readers will find fascinating, little-known anecdotes about an area of study that is not usually addressed in such introductory books. The important subject of women collectors is well covered, where Queen Christina of Sweden is one of the few exceptions in a largely male field. H. also mentions Countess Sophie Charlotte Bentinck, who devoted time to coin collecting and serious scholarship.
Chapter 6, ‘Science and Pseudoscience’, is an overview of numismatics from the nineteenth century to the present, where the creation of cabinets, new methodology and other subjects set modern numismatic methods in a wider context. Again, much can be learned from H.'s account, but there are odd sections, for example on ‘racialized numismatics’ and its supposed use today. The chapter ends with a debate about archaeology and numismatics, which leads to a detailed discussion of coin hoards (Chapters 7–8). Although an archaeologist would have a lot to criticise regarding this approach, H. provides an entertaining chapter, in which hoarding in ancient and modern literature, movies and Pompeii is given a ‘human’ context. His detailed account of hoarding and its reasons is often insightful even though his categorisation of hoards is somewhat peculiar (alongside the more normal emergency or savings hoards, there is an oddly defined ‘psychiatric’ hoard). It is debatable how H.'s criticism of R. Hobbs's analysis of fourth-century hoards in Britain (in: N. Crummy [ed.], Image, Craft and the Classical World [2005]) adds much or is indeed fair. In a somewhat convoluted discussion H. maintains that Hobbs should have called the evidence from Britain ‘failed hoarding’; i.e., it is not the burial of a hoard, but the failure of its recovery one needs to discuss. This is undoubtedly true, but Hobbs's original article, which addresses a famous debate between Martin Millet and Catherine Johns about Roman hoards in the 1990s, presents a much more sophisticated argument about the archaeology of hoarding than H. gives credit. In Chapter 9, ‘The Ethos and Ethics of Collecting’, H. tries to tackle the difficult subject of cultural property in numismatics. When it comes to collecting and dealing, H. prefers to explain views of collectors, of the coin market, and the complicated issues surrounding culture property in an imaginary discussion in a class where the professor has invited a collector. This chapter reads more like a novella than an academic book, which is undoubtedly a clever way of addressing a difficult and divisive subject. The last chapter deals with the future of numismatics, in which H. argues for the use of ‘cognitive numismatics’.
This book breaks, undoubtedly deliberately, most conventions of academic writing, even for one written for a general readership. One has to admire H.'s desire to write about such a wide variety of topics and periods, and despite my various points of criticism, there is much to learn. What is worrying is that the book contains many copy-editing errors. The fact that almost all coin denominations are written out incorrectly is alarming: ‘decadrachma’ or ‘tetradrachma’, even ‘tetradrachmas’ are everywhere (instead of either an English or Greek version). A Croeseid (a silver or gold coin of King Croesus) is called ‘Croesid’, and the glossary defines it as ‘an early electrum coin’. Other such instances could be listed; some are hilarious such as ‘Théodore Mommsen’. It is hard to imagine that H. was responsible for most of these, as this feels as if a global ‘find and replace’ was used to standardise everything, regardless of context and accuracy. This book would have undoubtedly benefited in more than one way from an academic editor, which OUP could surely have provided.
