Canadian scientists using ancient coins to map trading routes

Montreal Gazette ^ | December 7, 2010 | Randy Boswell

[SunkenCiv]

Canadian scientists probing the metal content of coins exchanged thousands of years ago in Mediterranean Europe have discovered a new way to map ancient trade patterns, to retrace economic ups and downs at the dawn of Western Civilization and even to shed new light on the collapse of the Roman Empire.

Researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton have launched a research project in which nuclear radiation is used to identify changes in metal content among ancient Greek and Roman coins held in a world-class collection amassed at the university since the 1940s...

A joint project between the university's classics department and its department of medical physics and applied radiation sciences, the ancient coin initiative involves x-ray analysis and a "proton microprobe" to determine how much silver, bronze or gold is contained in each piece of money...

Greater concentrations of tin, lead and other cheap metals in a coin can indicate its manufacture during a period of economic stress, inflated prices for more precious metals or low supplies of silver or bronze...

For example, he said, the silver mine on the Greek island of Siphons, located in the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey, was known to be a major metal source. There was another major mining operation near Athens.

[SunkenCiv]

Canadian scientists probing the metal content of coins exchanged thousands of years ago have discovered a new way to map ancient trade patterns, to retrace economic ups and downs at the dawn of western civilization and even to shed new light on the collapse of the Roman Empire. Researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton are using nuclear radiation to identify changes in metal content among ancient Greek and Roman coins held in a world-class collection amassed at the university since the 1940s. [Photograph by: McMaster University, Photo Handout]

[SunkenCiv]

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[InABunkerUnderSF]

Countries whose economies are under stress often debase their coinage - Nero in 58 AD, Johnson in 1965 AD, etc.

This is great as far as it goes but we don’t need 20 coin or 100 coin studies. In order to be statistically relevant we need thousands to be tested and compared.

I wonder if this technique could be used to identify fakes in major collections?

[COBOL2Java]

History and numismatics - what’s not to like? :-)

[njslim]

Was installing some equipment in bank when young woman come to teller with huge stack of $1 bills with occasional $5

Can you guess what her “job” was...?

[COBOL2Java]

Congresswoman? Oh wait, that’s a similar occupation...

[stefanbatory]

waitress?

[Waverunner]

Did they mean to say...
Follow the money..
What a novel idea for academia...
DOHHHHH

[SunkenCiv]

If they could have worked a climate change angle, they’d have gotten ten times more in the grant. :’)

[SunkenCiv]

:’)

[SunkenCiv]

There’s actually a market for collectible ancient counterfeit coins.