New tool for exploring the Coinage and Mints of Alexander the Great

[Kaleun96]

I've recently been working on a new "tool" for my website that leverages data from PELLA/American Numismatic Society to make it easier to explore the different mints that produced coins in the name of Alexander the Great. PELLA is a great tool itself and irreplaceable in many respects but there's a few things that could be done to make it easier to visualise the different mints, their relative locations and output, as well as similarities they may have in their production of Alexander types.

Click on the following link or URL to view the "Coins of Alexander Map": https://artemis-collection.com/coins-of-alexander/map/

The "Mints" panel on the left side lists all mints in alphabetical order. If you use a filter, this list will exclude mints that don't match the filter conditions.

Click on a mint in the list or on one of the blue mint markers on the map to view more details about that mint.

The map shows all known mints that produced coins in the name of Alexander (and Philip III + Lysimachos types in Price) and provides a bunch of filters that you won't find in PELLA to help identify particularly interesting or unique mints. Filters like date of the appearance of "ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ" at that mint, when the mint started/stopped production, how many unique types it was known to produce, and more. The size of the markers are in proportion to the number of total Alexander types produced at each mint.

From the "Filters" panel, you can set your filters to narrow down the list of mints you want to view by their attributes.

This will update both the "mint" list shown in the previous image, as well as the gallery of Price types below the map.

You can also tilt the view of the map to see the topography of the landscape. See details on page for instructions.

Clicking on either a mint from the side panel or a marker on the map will zoom you into that location and show you a summary of details about that mint. Below the map, every Price type belonging to a mint included in your search filters will be shown so you can get a quick look at the different types across the mints. Toggling the "Show only selected mints" button will limit these Price types to any mint you have clicked on in the map.

Below the map you can see a list of individual types from the list of filtered mints. You can sort this list by a couple of different attributes like date and # of Coins for each type in PELLA.

Enabling the toggle will further limit the types to any mint you have "active" in the left panel (i.e. showing the summary details)

Some things to keep in mind:

• Desktop/laptop only for now. It will not look good on mobile, it will be practically unusable, and may not be suited for small screens like tablets (don't have one myself to test).
• This is one of several tools I have planned related to the PELLA database and is specifically aimed at exploring the mints of Alexander, not the types of coins themselves. So when you use the search filters, keep in mind you're filtering on the characteristics of the mints, not of the types within the mints. Another tool will be aimed at analysing the types in more detail.
• This tool is a work-in-progress and you may see it change or stop working briefly over the next week or so. If you have any comments/suggestions, feel free to share them below.
• I checked with ANS before using their data and images to make sure I'm complying with their non-commercial use terms. Many of the types with only one or two coins in PELLA have no images in my tool because those images come from other collections and I need to check the terms of each collection before incorporating them into this.

 

So far I have only been able to test this in Chrome on Windows and Mac. It's possible you may experience bugs if using another browser, or possibly even the same browser. Please feel free to let me know if you notice anything that looks like it's not working correctly 🙂 Thanks!

[Ryro]

Holy Smakerole! Thank you very much🙂

 

 

[Deinomenid]

This is fantastic!

Thank you very much - also it seems to be working  fine with Firefox/Windows.

[Rand]

On 10/15/2022 at 9:59 PM, Kaleun96 said:

I've recently been working on a new "tool" for my website that leverages data from PELLA/American Numismatic Society to make it easier to explore the different mints that produced coins in the name of Alexander the Great. PELLA is a great tool itself and irreplaceable in many respects but there's a few things that could be done to make it easier to visualise the different mints, their relative locations and output, as well as similarities they may have in their production of Alexander types.

Click on the following link or URL to view the "Coins of Alexander Map": https://artemis-collection.com/coins-of-alexander/map/

An amazing resource!

[JAZ Numismatics]

[lim]

It's not clear here. The mint of Byblos or Arad?

[Kaleun96]

8 minutes ago, lim said:

It's not clear here. The mint of Byblos or Arad?

 

Martin Price followed Edward Newell's attribution of those types to Byblos. The map is based on Price's work "The Coinage in the Name of Alexander the Great and Philip Arrhidaeus" using the digitised data from the PELLA database so this map also attributes them to Byblos. However, since Martin Price published his work in 1991 (and even before that), other numismatists have argued these types belong to Arados. It's now generally accepted that they should be attributed to Arados and I also agree with that attribution. You can read more about this reattribution in this paper: https://www.academia.edu/66745422/On_the_Reattribution_of_Some_Byblos_Alexanders_to_Arados_II_FULL_PAPER_NOW_AVAILABLE

Edited November 23, 2024 by Kaleun96

[lim]

With the Memphis rose, the coin has been issued since 324 BC. So the dating of coins with crossed legs is taken from the coins of Sidon. You have a coin with a rose listed as 332-323 BC.

[Kaleun96]

Just now, lim said:

With the Memphis rose, the coin has been issued since 324 BC. So the dating of coins with crossed legs is taken from the coins of Sidon. You have a coin with a rose listed as 332-323 BC.

As I literally just explained above, I'm using Martin Price's work for these attributions. I know they are not all correct according to our current understanding.

The reason I'm using his work as the basis is because the map is tied to the data from the PELLA database I linked earlier. The PELLA database follows Martin Price's attributions. The purpose is not for the map, or for PELLA, to reflect current knowledge but to reflect what Martin Price has in his book.

[lim]

And another question. Is it possible to sort the mints here during the lifetime of Alexander the Great?

[Kaleun96]

1 minute ago, lim said:

And another question. Is it possible to sort the mints here during the lifetime of Alexander the Great?

Do you mean to filter only on lifetime mints? You can do so like this:

https://artemis-collection.com/coins-of-alexander/map/?is_lifetime_mint=Yes&sort_field=price_order&sort_order=asc

[kirispupis]

This is extremely cool and useful!

Some feedback if you don't mind:

• It's a bit weird that when I select a mint on the side or on the map, the coins below aren't filtered to that mint. I understand that there are two separate navigations, but it's a bit odd.
• It would be nice to be able to filter by metal. I do this all the time on Pella's site because I'm usually interested in bronzes

There are some interesting observations that can already be made with the data though. For example, Nisyros is restricted to 201 BCE. However, there are two types and 12 coins in Pella (not sure how many dies, but obviously at least two sets). That seems like a lot of coinage for one year...

I'm not sure if you have it in your plans, but the biggest issue I've always had on Pella is trying to find a mint mark. It's an enormous hassle. Many years ago I played around with algorithms to recognize Chinese characters from drawing (for use in a foreign language learning application of my own). Obviously there are algorithms/AI light years beyond what I did now, and I wonder how easy it would be to employ something like that to recognize mint marks.

It shouldn't be difficult to train AI to pull the mint marks from coins and then "trace" them. 

[lim]

I collect mostly lifetime coins of Alexander the Great. Thank you, it's a very convenient program.

[lim]

Hello, here's an interesting question. Were there tetradrachms in Sardis during Macedonian's lifetime? There are a lot of articles that write articles, the reason why only drachmas and staters were issued there.

[Rand]

10 hours ago, kirispupis said:

It shouldn't be difficult to train AI to pull the mint marks from coins and then "trace" them. 

Would the coin condition with incomplete mint marks and photo quality complicate the application of AI?
It would be helpful (beyond this resource and may exist elsewhere) to have a list of all monograms grouped and with a decision tree to help find them and identify the coin.

[Kaleun96]

12 hours ago, kirispupis said:

This is extremely cool and useful!

Some feedback if you don't mind:

• It's a bit weird that when I select a mint on the side or on the map, the coins below aren't filtered to that mint. I understand that there are two separate navigations, but it's a bit odd.
• It would be nice to be able to filter by metal. I do this all the time on Pella's site because I'm usually interested in bronzes

There are some interesting observations that can already be made with the data though. For example, Nisyros is restricted to 201 BCE. However, there are two types and 12 coins in Pella (not sure how many dies, but obviously at least two sets). That seems like a lot of coinage for one year...

Thanks!

1. Yeah that's a good point, one I debated at the time with a friend. The mint map for my collection behaves that way by default but I chose not to do it on this one. I might reverse course on it. At the time my thinking was that the filtering should only be done via the dedicated filters and filtering further to a mint within a group of mints should be an option but not the default. Though it probably just leads to more confusion and personally I often find myself enabling "Show only selected Mint" anyway.
2. Ah yes, surprised I didn't already have this! I guess I figured that the denomination filter would cover it but you're right that it's convenient to filter by metal rather than selecting all the metal-specific denominations. Shouldn't be too difficult for me to add this.

Something I find interesting, given how common they are, is just how few mints that opened after 323 BC produced drachmas, and seemingly none of these produced drachmas in Philip III's name. Compare that to tetradrachms, where there's loads of minor mints which opened after 323 BC. Really seems to suggest that the drachm coinage had a specific purpose and/or was limited to certain mints for some reason.

Quote

 

I'm not sure if you have it in your plans, but the biggest issue I've always had on Pella is trying to find a mint mark. It's an enormous hassle. Many years ago I played around with algorithms to recognize Chinese characters from drawing (for use in a foreign language learning application of my own). Obviously there are algorithms/AI light years beyond what I did now, and I wonder how easy it would be to employ something like that to recognize mint marks.

It shouldn't be difficult to train AI to pull the mint marks from coins and then "trace" them. 

 

Interesting, hadn't thought about going that far with it. I do have it in my long term plans to essentially create an alternative version of PELLA where I keep the attributions up to date with current literature and fix mistakes from PELLA and Price. Not to compete with PELLA per se, more for my own convenience if anything. Part of that would be to make it easier to find monograms and symbols, which would mean redrawing or drawing from scratch some of them.

[Kaleun96]

4 hours ago, lim said:

Hello, here's an interesting question. Were there tetradrachms in Sardis during Macedonian's lifetime? There are a lot of articles that write articles, the reason why only drachmas and staters were issued there.

Yes there were but they're exceedingly rare. I don't think I've ever seen one come to auction and I don't think I've ever found one in auction archives.

[lim]

I looked at the sales archive. Once in 2012, the Sardis tetradrachma was held. But it is not clear why it was released at all? If it's that rare.

[Kaleun96]

20 minutes ago, lim said:

I looked at the sales archive. Once in 2012, the Sardis tetradrachma was held. But it is not clear why it was released at all? If it's that rare.

Can you share a link to it?

[Kaleun96]

I'm aware of this one from 2012 that was attributed as Price 2540 but the attribution is wrong as that coin is definitely not a lifetime example and not from the same series as the coins that form Price 2540. It may be from a later period at the mint but shouldn't be attributed to Price 2540 but rather a new type (assuming it doesn't belong it an existing type elsewhere).

[lim]

I looked at the coins of Cyprus, but I did not find Kition. Maybe I'm wrong.

Edited November 24, 2024 by lim

[lim]

I was wrong, the Sardis coin was sold in 2012.

[lim]

Miletus and Abydos are also indicated by lifetime tetradrachms, which is strange.

[Kaleun96]

2 minutes ago, lim said:

Miletus and Abydos are also indicated by lifetime tetradrachms, which is strange.

They do have lifetime tetradrachms. Abydos is debateable, even Price himself wasn't 100% certain of the attribution to Abydos, it's possible they belong to Lampsakos instead. If I recall correctly, it follows the attribution of the drachm types so if that attribution changes, so would the tetradrachms.

[Kaleun96]

17 minutes ago, lim said:

I looked at the coins of Cyprus, but I did not find Kition. Maybe I'm wrong.

Price used the Latin spelling of Citium: https://artemis-collection.com/coins-of-alexander/map/?mint=Citium&region=Cyprus&sort_field=price_order&sort_order=asc