JeandAcre

34 minutes ago, Hrefn said:

Carolingian:  Silver denier of Louis the Child, gilded and probably ex jewelry, despite which it is in very nice shape.  He died aged 17 or 18.  Ultimately succeeded by Henry the Fowler.  The Magyars ravaged his kingdom for much of his reign.   The mint of Strasbourg was first Argentoratum, roughly the Silver or Treasure Fort, in Gaulish, and the reverse legend refers to this.  Purchased 2/2014 

Hi Hrefn,

That kicks something all over the block, gilding, ex jewelry, or not.  The reign, just by itself, is summarily beyond my means.  And any fan of Carolingian has to love those horizontal legends in the reverse fields.  The sheer rarity of the reign and issue has me wanting to believe that the giding might be more contemporaneous than one might otherwise think.

I really wish someone would post some Carolingian or related stuff.  Meanwhile, here are my all-time favorite example of a 'GDR' immobilization, and an instance of Carolingians themselves imitating LRB prototypes.  Yep, both posted at varous times on the other forum.

Richard I, Count of Rouen (the future Duchy of Normandy) 942-996.  Denier, found, conspicuously underattributed, on French ebay.  To all appearances, this is a die match to Plate 6047 of Dumas, Trésor de Fécamp (cf. pp.104-5).

Rev. (as rendered by Dumas:)  +I/\I[cruciform 'O']C/\SH CIT/\S.  Corresponding to the Carolingian prototype of Charles the Bald (King of the West Franks 840-877): +HBAIOCASM CIVITAS. (cf. Depeyrot, 3rd ed., 2008, No. 127).

Obv. Degraded 'KAROLVS' monogram.  (From 10 o'clock:) +CP/\TI/\ D-I REX.  ('+GRATIA D-I [/DEI] REX;' Depeyrot, loc. cit.)

...Of course, after this happened, I had to get an example of the prototype.  In the case of this one, along with a Charles the Bald denier of Rouen, it really feels as if, for condition, I just kind of lucked out.  Right, here the obverse legend begins a 9 o'clock.

Right; Depeyrot, loc. cit.  

...And this is the example of Charles himself imitating the LRB 'camp-gate' motif.

Charles the Bald; denier of Orleans.

Obv. Cross; +CARLVS REX FR.

Rev. Neo-Roman camp gate; (from 6 o'clock:) +AVRE[...]LI[...]ANIS.

Depeyrot 725.

Here's one example of the collective prototype; Constantine II as Caesar, Trier mint. 

...I have to like how, back to the 4th and 5th centuries, the various Germanic tribes who conquered the western Roman Empire were deeply invested in what was left of the Classical tradition.  The so-called Carolingian and 12th-Century Renaissances weren't merely a cumulative anticipation of the big one, from the 14th (Giotto, anyone?) and 15th centuries through the 16th.  They reflect a remarkabe level of engagement with a cultural heritage which was effectively foreign to the ethnic origins of most of the ruling classes.  Sustained, with wildly varying levels of success, over the entire interval. 

Welcome, @JayAg47!  Speaking for myself, this really feels like a new home.  With serious upgrades of, hmm, only the platform, the administrative oversight, and the members.  Pretty sure you'll like it here.

This arrived the other day, from a well-known French dealer who lists on ebay and Delcampe.  The weirdness is that, despite his photographic aptitude --maybe not the best, but better than I can begin to aspire to-- it's only that much better dans le main.

Cf. Christophe Adam,  Corpus des Monnaies Féodales Champenoises.  (Troyes, 2018 --and, Yes, @seth77, please receive my ongoing, sincere apologies that, going back to early issues of Provins, my second-hand scanner still isn't cooperating with downloads, never mind uploads.  At least until anyone more technologically literate than I'll ever be can fix it.) With a total of 14 entries and plates for the subtype, he lists this as "Type 3, 'entre 956 et 995; monogramme type tresor de Sceaux."   (Pp. 18-23; nos. 11-25, avec plates.)

Obv.  Degraded Carolingian, 'KAROLVS' monogram.  From 5 o'clock (with badly rendered lettering, but not 'blundered' per se, compromising the legend itself): 'CRATIA DI REX'.  ('GRATIA D[OMIN]I REX;' by the grace of God.)

Rev.  Cross potent (a cool variant, in itself).  +TRECAS CIVI.

In spite of the evident clipping, this is my new favorite of the couple of other examples I have.  --For which I can only find pics of the obverse of one.

...It would be terrific fun if anyone contributed any coins of medieval Champagne.  Or anything else 10th c. CE, from anywhere.

All of this stuff is blowing me away, regardless of how much of it I've seen before elsewhere.  But I'm really loving @DonnaML's and @Octavius' shots of it in situ.  Donna, I can't imagine how you find the space in an apartment to display this in the amazing way you do.  Octavius, it's like, artifacts and books (never mind bookcases that are that impressive in their own right).  I'm saying, --Yesssss!!!  ...Or even, 'quoting' Joyce from memory, 'And Yes I said Yes I said Yes.'

Many thanks, one and all, for being kind enough to take the time with this.  

Donna, as you would expect, I'm getting Lots of traction with your experience.  For one particular, I really appreciate your reassurances about Windows 11.  ...I know it'll have to happen one day.  But, as Ed Snible implied, I start with 18 font, and after I upload anything in the way of graphics onto the post, the font goes back to the default size 12.  ...Ed, I am using Chrome, and I do some of both uploadingd from files and pasting.  Seems to happen in either case.  ...And this very day, a tech guy at work turned me on to the Windows equivalent, the 'Windows' key and +, to enlarge the whole screen.  But I just tried that right here, and the very first enlargement size is Gigantor, to the point where you lose the ability to see an entire line of the text --even in size 12 font.

Unless someone thinks of something else, to actually change the default size for this machine, I'm happy to just deal with it.  If that's the biggest inconvenience this platform is capable of, it's still a vast improvement on anything comparable that I've ever seen. 

3 hours ago, Alegandron said:

I just cannot read any Arabic. A Lebanese buddy of mine tried teaching me several times, writing many things out for me (including my name.) nope. I think cuz it all looks cursive for me, and I really do not write in cursive now.

They fall into my mental reading classification as “Squiggle Letters”.

I akin that classification to Einsteins calling the Quantum Mechanics Theory as “Spooky Action at a Distance”.

😄 

@Alegandron, it's really not schadenfreude; I'm just So on your page!

Many thanks, @expat.  But I probably should have mentioned how primitive my equipment is.  It's an old, dying desktop, still with Windows 7.  I just need to make myself get a replacement ...still dreading that....

Many thanks, @Spaniard, on all counts, but especially for clearing up the versions of Jaume's name!!! 

I feel very fortunate to have found a copy of the operant volume of Crusafont.  For coins of the region, I like it only more than the volume of MEC.

@Cordoba, those are two magnificent dinars. 

And for illiteracy in Arabic, I'll bet I have you beat!  I mainly collect Islamic coins for the indispensible context they provide to European medieval ones.  But even as their more immediate history is richly compelling in its own right, the more I find out about it, so are the esthetic qualities of the legends, independently of my inability to read them.  ...Even in this medium, I find it hard to use the phrase, 'Arabic lettering;' I always have to stop myself from saying, 'Arabic calligraphy.'

It really needs repeating, ...again; on a technical level, everything about this platform is a vast relief, compared to the old one.  Thanks again, @Restitutor, for your time and evident expertise in picking the right one.

...But one thing I wish I was literate enough to figure out is how to change the default mode to a larger font.  For some of us, especially in an inherently recreational context, this really helps.  From home, I'm looking at the screen over more than two feet of desk.  And so far, every time I upload anything, the font changes back to the, from here, frankly squinty 12-point font.

Would anyone be kind enough to help out with this?  I would enjoy the net result enough to also enjoy the attendant embarrassment.

With thanks for anyone's kind attention.  (...And I'm thinking that, just maybe, this belongs in the general discussion.)

@Spaniard, that's a magnificent example of James II.

And @seth77, Many thanks for a Fantastic website, which I'd never happened across ...unless, Just Maybe, it represents a major overhaul of one going back a decade or so, that disappeared.

(For books in print, I could recommend vol. 6 (The Iberian Peninsula) of Medieval European Coinage (2013; 1st paper printing, 2017).  It's the only volume of the series that I could find cheaply enough to buy.  With luck, that's still the case.  To all appearances, it's very complete for the issues of the Christian kings, although for al-Andalus, not so much.  --Granted, it cites Crusafont --a coauthor, along with Philip Grierson-- as you did.)

...The same decade ago, when ebay in several countries was still a rich field, I put together a type set of Jaime I, by mint.  These are the two I can readily find pics of; of Aragon (granted, worse than @Ursus' example) and Barcelona.  My favorite is actually the one of Valencia, but the pics of that one, if there are any, are eluding capture.

Then, among what's readily findable picturewise, there's this one of his father, Alfons I.  (1162-1196.)  These are notorious for the 'ghosting' of the reverse cross (anticipating Edward I's 'new coinage' pennies by roughly a century), but this one is less than stellar even for the type.  (Crusafont 296; MEC 82-5.)

Here are a couple of earlier examples, from Ramon Berenguer III (1096-1131) and IV (1131-1162), as Counts of Barcelona.  (MEC vol. 6: 57 and 58 -60, respectively; Crusafont 31, 33.)  The only appreciable difference is that in Ramon III's issue, the 'BARCINO' legend faces outward, as in some Roman issues, especially Flavian ones.  Apart from that, the legend, around what's ostensibly a fleur de lis, begins at 12 o'clock in Ramon III's case, and 6 o'clock in his son's.  ...Yes, these folks are lineal ancestors of the royal dynasty that includes the Jameses.  

An orthographic note: I get confused about the Iberian renderings, 'Jaime' and 'Jaume.'  Is it as easy as one version being Spanish, and the other Catalan?

Fantastic coin and post, @seth77.  As late as I joined CT, I'm sure this is one I, for one, never saw there.  Please, Pile 'em on!

Welcome, @PlanoSteve!  Terrific to have you here.  Betting several of us have invited folks from the other forum, but I for one still worry about who I missed.

(If anyone was actually anticipating some medieval artifacts, sorry for the delay of this post. –Issues with Google Docs, not this platform. As  in, life is what happens when you were attempting to maintain a train of thought.  --John Lennon, paraphrased.) 

Despite the profusion of French feudal issues, and similar series in  Lotharingia /greater Lorraine, and Spain (<--Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison notwithstanding), feudal coins from Norman and Angevin England are decidedly rare, and correspondingly stratospheric.

Enter heraldic harness pendants and studs.  The commonest of these are c. mid-13th into the third quarter of the 14th century, in the shape of  triangular shields of the period.  (The later reference cited here puts the ‘peak period’ at ‘around 1280 to 1350.’)  They’re decorated with the coat of arms of whichever aristocratic or knightly family they were made for.  The medium is ‘latten,’ a medieval (and famously Shakespearean) bronze alloy, with enamel and gilt used for the ‘tinctures’ of the coat of arms.

Most of the ones on the market are recent detector finds, in less than pristine condition.  But sometimes they have both operant tinctures, allowing the identification of a specific family and, in an absolute best case, an individual.  

In effect, over this relatively brief interval, you’re looking at the primary available Anglo-Norman equivalent of feudal coins.  Down to their being variously ‘anonymous’ (in this case, with only the arms of the family; inviting no more than guesswork about the individual, based on the triangulation of findspot, when known, and apparent chronology) and sometimes, only better, in the issuer’s own name (in rare instances when a coat of arms can unambiguously be identified with a specific individual).

This is an illustration of what they looked like in real time, from the Trinity Apocalypse, c. mid-13th century.  Picture from Claire Barnes, on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ClaireFromClare/status/1432696668667977732/photo/2

…Funly demonstrating a very early phase of partial ‘plate armor’ in the process.

Here’s a link to the Trinity College website, with lots more detail on the ms.: https://mss-cat.trin.cam.ac.uk/manuscripts/uv/view.php?n=R.16.2&n=R.16.2#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=48&xywh=186%2C1374%2C3549%2C1832

Here are a couple of examples, with enough of both tinctures to establish the precise coat of arms.  

Or a lion rampant azure (blue).  (In heraldry, the ‘field,’ or background, always precedes the ‘chief,’ or motif.  …Sorry for the sheer pedantry.)  This is the coat of the Percys, lords of Alnwick and eventual earls of Northumberland.  

In 1309, the Percy family bought Alnwick Castle from the bishop of Durham, who had fallen into it after the extinction of the original, lay lords.  In spite of vast amounts of internal rebuilding during the 18th and 19th centuries, a surprising amount of the external stonework, from the 12th to the 14th centuries, remains more or less intact.  Here’s a view of the ‘barbican,’ actually the gateway to the keep, usually attributed to Henry (d. 1352), grandfather of the first Percy earl of Northumberland. 

…This is still the best picture I can find online.  If you squint, you can see the shields, just below the battlements, with the coats of arms of numerous related families as of the mid-14th century.  …This is why some of us still need stuff that’s in the print medium.

…Now, we get somewhere.  This is the latest one I bought; another UK detector find.

Gules (red), a saltire (“X”) and chief (band across the top) or.

From my principal reference for Anglo-Norman heraldry (that is, of the predominantly Anglo-Norman aristocracy of the Angevin period), along with an ancillary one, this corresponds to exactly one person.  This is Richard de Brus (Bruce), an uncle of Robert I, King of Scotland.  Richard predeceased his own father, leaving no heirs.

https://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/SCOTLAND.htm#RobertBrusdied1295

…And his coat of arms never appeared in a later generation.  It shows up in several English rolls of arms of the later 13th century, including one a few years after his demise, but always in his own name.

It was sold unattributed by a dealer on UK ebay who sells lots of detector finds.  Here I think I’ve struck gold.  Sad as the story is (...and, really, the pendant isn’t much prettier in hand than the picture shows), there’s exactly one person to associate with this blazon.

References.  

Ashley, Steven.  Medieval Armorial Horse Furniture in Norfolk. East Anglian Archaeology Report No. 101, 2002.

Baker, John.  ‘The Earliest Armorial Harness Pendants.’  The Coat of Arms 3rd ser. 11 (2015), no. 229, pp. 1-24.

Humpherey-Smith, Cecil.  Anglo-Norman Armory Two: An Ordinary of Thirteenth-Century Armorials.  Canterbury: The Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies, 1984.

On 5/31/2022 at 5:45 AM, NewStyleKing said:

I have been to Egypt 12 times. The Copts who may be considered descendants of the Pharaonic peoples look like their Muslim brothers. It is only past the 1st cataract of the Nile into Nubia that the African nature is apparent! This has been noted archaeologically and on ancient artwork, eg Hatshepsut's mortuary temple at Deir el Bahdri. Diop had an agenda to preach!

Thanks, @NewStyleKing, for your observations.  ...Except, they inexorably invite the question, what was Herodotus' agenda?  ...Or Volney's?  ...Or, for that matter, that of later 19th- and 20th-century, Eurocentric archaeologists?  On this level, revisionism is kind of where you find it.

 @Ancient Coin Hunter's post admirably broadens the scope of this topic, regarding when Egyptians looked like this or that, and what specific demographics were involved in any given historical context. 

For one related example, the Ptolemaic dynasty notoriously intermarried with no one who wasn't Greek.  (Leading to levels of inbreeding that evoke the later Habsburgs in Germany and Spain ...whether or not with comparably catastrophic consequences.)  Much of the initial Roman population was similarly inclined; granted, not at the perilous level of a single dynasty.  And similarly ethnically cohesive populations, whether mercenaries or slaves, were present in Egypt back to Pharaonic times.  It took a millennium and a half of foreign domination for the aggregate population to genetically 'stew' to the point where you see them today.

Meanwhile, Herodotus is reporting on what he saw as of the 5th century BCE, during the earliest, Persian phase of foreign rule.  To reiterate, we're talking about a millennium and a half of history. 

Given which, returning to modern Copts, I can cite a photograph on p. 105 of Christian Cannuyer's Coptic Egypt: The Christians of the Nile (New York: Abrams, 2001), showing a Coptic congregation in worship --all standing, old and young, as in Eastern Orthodox practice (p. 105).  From the hair and facial morphology, there's a spectrum of people of varyingly Arab, and partly Black appearance.  Not unlike modern Palestinians. 

...In effect, what's crudely referred to as 'miscegenation' has been the default mode for centuries, in numerous parts of the world.  For instance, compare this (a group of kids in Cairo --not even likely to be Copts ...unless some of them were)

https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/levine/bundles/225160

To this (another picture of Jelly Roll Morton, vis. my OP about old coins and old tunes):

https://www.nonesuch.com/artists/jelly-roll-morton

Who said anything, Ever, about laziness being gender specific?  Getting No traction with that, At All.

Brilliant OP and thread, @Numisnewbie, with an opening collective salvo to match!  @jdmKY, that would be a benignly Insane Osiris even if was Saite.  The fact that it's from a key interval just before that just makes it that much more staggering.  The condition is incredible.  I have to breathe for a minute.  @Alegandron, your scarabs are incredible too; the range, chronologically and thematically, is amazing.  And thanks for turning me on to The Time Machine on VCoins, where I got my one ushabti, from the same period as @jdmKY's Osiris.  ...And @DANTE, Seriously, the website you linked to is awesome, too.  I like how the dealers who know what they're talking about tend to have the sanest prices.

I'll need to get a little more organized to post any of my stuff, but I was thinking we need some medieval up in this house.  Stay tuned....

Where Egypt is concerned, it's really necessary to think in terms of nuance and, well pluralism, regarding ethnic origins.  Since the mid-first millennium BCE, Egypt has seen multiple waves not only of invasion, but settlement; Persians, Greeks, Romans /Byzantines, more Persians, Arabs, and Ottoman Turks.  And from photographs I've seen, Copts are on a comparable spectrum, some of them with a fairly unmistably Black component.  Think of 'Creoles' in greater New Orleans.    I like to think of Cairo as the equivalent ...except that the river flows in the opposite direction.

40 minutes ago, quant.geek said:

A not-so-frequently encountered coin...

 

Portuguese Inda, Goa: Maria I and Pedro III 1786 ½ Pardao (KM#189, Gomes-06.04)

Obv: Conjoined heads of Maria I and Pedro III facing right, date below
Rev: Crowned arms

 

@quant.geek, that's the stuff!!!  I'm needing it how various colonial contexts perpetuated hammered coinage into the 18th century, never  mind this late.

4 hours ago, UkrainiiVityaz said:

 

My oldest dated Christian era coin - a 1508 denar from Hungary.

@UkrainiiVityaz, I've never seen an example that early, in that stellar a condition.  ...And the heraldry on the reverse is magnificent; I could only wish that someone could 'deconstruct' it, quartering by quartering.  --It won't be me!

...And she Doesn't have the same hair style!

Honestly, I'm not getting much traction with the notion, even (or especially) from academics, that where ancient ethnic origin is concerned, the issue of  Georgian vs. Egyptian (...or Greek) has to be a zero-sum game.  ...As you will know, Even in this great land of ours, the real danger to national security isn't immigration; it's inbreeding. 

Meanwhile, Many thanks, especially for the Wiki article.  You might notice that when it came to assigning mythological labels, ...well, either to the woman or the bull, I kind of wasn't going there.  --But, Please, let's stay with bulls for a minute.  In boh Greek and Egyptian mythology, they're conspicuously thick on the ground.  Guessing the significance of that motif would be like having your turn to hit a pinata.

Anyone fluent in Herodotus, even in translation (disclaimer: I’m not), is likely to know where this is going.  First, though, the coins.

Colchis. Half siglos / hemidrachm, c. 425-325 BCE.

Obv: Female profile facing right.

Rev: Bull’s head facing right.

Hind 7; HGC 7, 215

Map of Colchis during Classical times.  From the hellenicaworld website: www.hellenicaworld.com/Greece/Geo/en/Colchis.html

The account of the origin of the Colchians by Herodotus (c. 484 – 425 BCE) begins with the following observations.  (I’ll spare all of us his extended digression about the dissemination of circumcision among various Nilotic and Semitic populations.  Not least because one of the latter is conspicuous by its absence.)

“For it is plain to see that the Colchians are Egyptians; and this that I say I myself noted before I heard it from others.  When I began to think on this matter, I inquired of both peoples; and the Colchians remembered the Egyptians better than the Egyptians remembered the Colchians; the Egyptians said that they held the Colchians to be part of Sesostris’ army.  [Corresponding to the improbably early reign of Senusret III; Middle Kingdom, c. 1836-1818 BCE.  Cf. Wilkinson, esp. xv (timeline).]  I myself guessed it to be so, partly because they are dark-skinned and woolly-haired….”  (Herodotus, vol.I, Book II, 104; pp. 391, 393.)  

Later, Herodotus notes that the Colchians fought with Xerxes I in his invasion of Greece, c. 480-79 BCE (vol. III, Book VII, 79; p. 389).  In the latter context, it’s worth noting that his own hometown of Helicarnassus, in Anatolia, was under Persian rule.

Before getting to the Colchians themselves, initial attention is called for, regarding Herodotus’ assessment of the early post-Pharaonic Egyptians.  In the latter context, this passage has been quoted by authors as diverse as Volney, The Ruins of Empires (see esp. 15-17 …trans. 1802; a book the ‘monster’ reads in Mary Shelley, Frankenstein), and Diop’s pioneering work of ‘Afrocentric’ history, The African Origin of Civilization.

But nearly a century prior to Volney and Shelley, John Woodward, a pioneering English antiquarian (contemporary to the likes of Swift, Addison, Steele and Pope), had implicitly accepted Herodotus’ observation, and anticipated Volney’s ensuing thesis, purely on the basis of his “‘conviction that all the events of the Pentateuch [...] had been there truly described.’”  (Levine, 76.)  The book of Genesis unambiguously identifies the Egyptians as descendants of Ham.  Having equally internalized the high tide of British colonialism, genocide and slavery, and the early phases of modern racism, Woodward’s sole option was to denigrate the cultural achievements of the Pharaonic Egyptians.  Noting, for instance, that “the pyramids [....n]ext to classical architecture, [...] were barbarous, ‘without any consideration of adornment or beauty.’”  (78; cf. 76-79, passim.)  …The same agenda has continued, seamlessly, to our own day; only the tactics have changed.

...Meanwhile, it's worth noting that Herodotus himself, in light of his pioneering status as a prototypical historian, journalist, and anthropologist, found numerous critics, from his own time well into later phases of the Classical era.  Given which, thanks to the recurring, large-scale presence of Greek mercenaries in Egypt, from the the 7th to the 5th centuries BCE, we can be confident that his observations regarding the Egyptians could have been summarily discounted by his Greek contemporaries.  (Cf. Wilkinson, 411-2, 428-9.)  That, for one, simply never happened.  In this context, his veracity has been dramatically demonstrated by a recent archaeological discovery (2019 –spelling used in deference to the source).

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/mar/17/nile-shipwreck-herodotus-archaeologists-thonis-heraclion

…Segueing from Egyptians to Colchians, the agenda mentioned above continues its inexorable march.  This numismatic article on the coins of Colchis –despite an introduction referring to its history from the 8th c. BCE– simply has no mention of Herodotus.  …Shifting tactics: can you say, ‘passive aggressive?’

https://www.persee.fr/doc/dha_0755-7256_1993_num_19_1_2084#dha_0755-7256_1993_num_19_1_T1_0236_0000

In the same vein, the Wiki article on Colchis, after quoting Herodotus, says that “[t]hese claims have been widely rejected by modern historians. It is in doubt if Herodotus had ever been to Colchis or Egypt.”  …Citing a net total of two references, from 1992 and 2001, respectively. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colchis#cite_note-FOOTNOTEFehling199413Marincola200134-58

Having addressed the issue of Herodotus’ veracity, I could continue with some circumstantial evidence for a significant Egyptian ethnic component of the Colchians, this time readily adducible from the coins themselves.

First, the eye shape of the female profile.  Right, right, even the Athenian tetradrachms of the earlier 5th century have something vaguely similar.  But in these examples, the relative size, and only more pronounced frontal disposition, evoke the much later survival of an Egyptian esthetic in Aksumite coins, as noted in this passage of  Munro-Hay’s introduction:

“[From the later 3rd century CE], the royal bust is shown in profile facing right.  The eye and shoulders are not seen in profile, but semi-frontally [...].  The Aksumites thus adopted the ancient Egyptian convention [evident in reliefs as well as murals] of showing profile heads while the eyes and shoulders were always rendered full face, very different from the style adopted on South Arabian or Roman coins [both of which drew more directly from Classical precedent].  (35-6.)

Ezanas, AR, pre-Christian; Munro-Hay 39.

Meanwhile, the coiffure evokes this, for one.  After which, I’m outta here.

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/685672

Works cited, other than via links …or too fleetingly to be worth a compete citation (Shelly, Frankenstein.)

Diop, Cheikh.  The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality.  Trans. Mercer Cook.  (My copy, a first US printing from 1974, is currently on loan to an esteemed colleague at work, precluding full bibliographic data.)

Herodotus [sic].  With an English Translation by A. D. Godley.  Vol. I: Books I and II.  1920.  Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard UP /Heinemann, 1966.  Four volumes.  (Right, a parallel translation; the kind of thing I could only get any traction with for Latin, Old English, or French.)

Levine, Joseph M.  Dr. Woodward’s Shield: History, Science, and Satire in Augustan England.  Cornell U P, 1991.

Munro-Hay, Stuart and Juel-Jensen, Bent.  Aksumite Coinage.  London: Spink, 1995.

Volney, C. F. The Ruins of Empires.  “Published from the Peter Eckler edition [/translation] 1890.”  Baltimore: Black Classsic Press (“A Young Press With Some Very Old Ideas”), 1991.

Wilkinson, Toby.  The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt.  1st U. S. ed.  (London: Bloomsbury /) New York: Random House (both) 2010.

On 5/24/2022 at 11:22 PM, Severus Alexander said:

A beauty!  I agree, delta. 🙂

And you can upload videos directly on here?  Wow, cool!  You sure did pick a great platform and set up a fantastic forum, @Restitutor!!

@Severus Alexander, may I second your motion?  Everything about this platform is a pure relief from the other one.  I love how you can cut and paste stuff directly onto a post, and there's zero limit on graphics.  It's just brilliant.  Thanks, @Restitutor, for putting this much thought into the platform itself.

Lately, I've fallen into a handful of fractional dinars, from a nominally Fatimid ruler in Sicily, a couple of Andalusian taifas, and two imitative ones, from 10th-century Calabria and Spain (probably Christian), respectively.

But the real bling happened with this quasi-tremissis of Kaleb, the Aksumite emperor who briefely conquered part of western Yemen, c. 525, in collusion with Justin I.  For issues in his name, gold is effectively more common than silver or copper.  It's fun for still having  somewhat blundered Greek legends, but also a Ge'ez monogram of his name at the top of the obverse.  Later in the 6th century, Aksumite legends made a full transition from Greek to Ge'ez.  (Munro-Hay Type 95.)