Faces on coins

[edyzmedieval]

Tom Holland is a hack...

It's an ok job, a lot of the coins are pretty much just copper blobs, but there are some cool ones. One is a decadrachm from Athens, freaking massive.

You call that an ok job? Be serious. It's so cool.

[VandalCarthage]

How can you not get excited reading stuff like this:

http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issu....of.a.coin.htm

and

http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issu...r.and.gold.htm
"At 63 millimeters in diameter (2½ inches) and more than 169 grams (six ounces) of Bactrian gold, it is the largest such coin ever minted in the ancient world,"

It's fascinating, and there's so much material on it. RC Senior, R MacDonald, AN Lahiri, Prof. Dani, Tarn, Mitchner, Narain, Holt, etc. Narain has even presented essays suggesting that Ganesha was first depicted on the coins of Antialkidas. Senior and MacDonald's "Decline of the Indo-Greeks" is really one of the best books I've ever read on the subject, and the "The Coinage of Hermaios and it's Scythian Imitations" is awesome. In the former, he makes the first major attempt to put Indo-Scythian and Indo-Greek relations in perspective, thanks to a coin of Artemidoros claiming Maues as his father, and a potential joint issue of Apollodotos II and Azes.

Bactrian and Indo-Greek numismatics really is just outrageously interesting. If you can read the material, and places the kings, you can pretty much make legitimate arguments for a whole lot of different situations at the time. It's the most fun a student of Hellenism with a good imagination could ever have with his hobby

Guess I'm babbling, hehe. But when coins are 95% of the research material on your favorite subject... ~