Byzantine Coinage

by Philip Grierson

This introductory booklet on Byzantine coinage, first published in 1982, has been updated and expanded to include a description of the creation of the coin collection at Dumbarton Oaks. This new edition marks the completion of the five volume series Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection .

The booklet covers phases of the coinage, gold, silver, and copper coinage, types and inscriptions, and ruler representations. Tables of values corresponding with various times in the empire’s history, a list of Byzantine emperors, and a glossary are also provided.

Genres: History

76 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Franco Nepote · Rating 1 out of 5]

Lo leí en una tarde. Es muy tosco y poco explicativo, es como una guía rápida o un folletito que lees en la sala de espera del dentista. Quizá convenga evaluarlo en fisico, porque la versión en epub que agarré era mala mala mala. Le sumo una estrella porque al menos es organizado y los capítulos tienen coherencia entre sí.

[Anatolikon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite it only running about 70 pages from cover to cover, Philip Grierson has packed a lot of information into this tiny volume. It's meant for the utter beginner, but even after reading it, I felt that I had a basic grasp of how Byzantine coinage evolved, as well as how to recognize and date simple, well-preserved coins. He starts off with a general evolution of the coinage, running from the late Roman system that bore it to the Palaiologoi. He then spends the next half of the book discussing the three types of coins; gold, silver and copper. Gold and copper get the most page space, as silver was only occasionally used, but this section is filled with many good pictures of coins in their actual sizes, and his connection to the historical context makes it useful for the general study of Byzantine history. The next 20 pages are spent on how rulers are represented and how this changed over time, the religious inscriptions on coinage, and ends with a very brief section which explains common uses of "coin shorthand", and thus allows the reader to make sense of what the coin is saying if something like "PFAVG" is inscribed. Following a brief glossary and bibliography, Grierson includes a few pages on the collection at Dumbarton Oaks. A small map showing the location of the mints is also included at the beginning of the book. This is hardly necessary, but I feel that it was probably included to give non-specialists a better a better geographic orientation.

This book gets four stars on account of it being overly brief, and still costing $15. Dumbarton Oaks also published 'A Collection of Dated Byzantine Lead Sales (Dumbarton Oaks Other Titles in Byzantine Studies) for the same price, but has the advantage of being almost thrice the length and having better appendices. I was also hoping to learn something more about how coins are typically recovered, as well as something more on the "cup" coins of the Komnenian-era and later. Beyond acknowledging that they exist, Grierson has very little to say on them.

However, this is still a very good introductory volume. The pictures of the coins are reproduced with clarity, and the text is easy to read and very informative. Highly recommended.