Pocket Change Roman
by Alice Sharpless and Lucia Carbone
The purpose of control marks in Roman Republican coinage is not well understood. Beginning as early as 112 BCE, the Roman mint began experimenting with control marks. Sometimes these control marks were unique to the die and sometimes they were not. Control mark systems employed a very wide use of numbers, letters, and symbols. So far, the issues released to RRDP include 40 with control marks. Much has been written about the potential function of such marks. Back in 1987, A. Burnett suggested that die marks “were apparently [originally] intended to keep track of the…
Although fundamental to our discipline, one of the most difficult skills to teach aspiring Roman numismatists is how to identify…
By Liv Mariah Yarrow
I never had the pleasure of meeting Charles Hersh in his lifetime, but over these last few…
Auferre trucidare rapere falsis nominibus imperium, atque ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.To plunder, butcher, steal, these things they misname empire:…
One way to study numismatic objects is through the lens of the anthropological/archaeological concept of object biography. A helpful guide…
by Alice Sharpless
This blog post is a preliminary version of an article to be submitted for peer review. Comments and…
by Liv M. Yarrow and Alice Sharpless
This post announces the third data release from the Roman Republican Die Project (RRDP)….
December 28, 2021. I spend a lot of time thinking about the significance and intent behind certain images on ancient…
Fig. 1. Athens. New Style tetradrachm with monogram interpreted as ΜΑΡΚΟΥ (Lucullus)/ ΤΑΜΙΟΥ. Thompson 1313. ANS 2015.20.871 (bequest of R….
Fig. 1. So-called “Sulla,” a copy (probably from the time of Augustus) after a portrait of an important Roman from…
As one of the leading international centers of numismatic research, it’s no surprise that the stories coins tell about the…
by Alice Sharpless and Lucia Carbone
This blog post accompanies the second release of data for the RRDP Project. You can…