Numismatica antica (Scienze Archeologiche, 42 ore, 6 CFU)

Ancient coinage in the Western Mediterranean & Northwestern Provinces is designed to introduce MA students in Archaeology and Ancient History to major issues in the study of ancient coinage, and to key methodologies and approaches. By the end of the module students will have gained an understanding of the main developments that took place in the numismatic history of antiquity and be able to examine critically interpretations of ancient coinage and of coin finds advanced by modern scholarship.

It will help to develop students’ intellectual skills in the following areas:

• Ability to select and respond to particular methodological approaches when dealing with coinage;

• Appreciation of methodological issues in dealing with coinage;

• Understanding of the ways in which coinage have been studied since antiquity;
• Ability to present a structured chain of argument drawing together evidence into a cohesive whole;
• Ability to select and apply appropriate problem-solving methodologies;
• Ability to conduct independent research and analysis.

It will also help to develop the following key transferable skills:

• Written and oral communication skills;
• Organisational skills;
• Ability to evaluate intellectual progress;
• IT skills and word processing

The course is interactive, and includes debates and student-led sessions.

As well as studying the history of coinage students will have the opportunity to handle original coins and to gain expertise in its cataloguing.

The course is taught by Prog e curr Frey-Kupper per Moodle, an archaeologist and ancient historian specialised in numismatics, based at the University of Warwick UK. She has worked for over three decades on many sites across the Western Mediterranean and the North-Western Provinces where she has studied and published the coin finds uncovered by various international teams. Currently she is working on the volume Sicily and Adjacent Islands of the third radically revised edition of B.V. Head’s Historia Numorum Sicily and Adjacent Islands. Other projects are on coin finds such as from the late antique destruction layer of the Basilica Aemilia on the Forum Romanum in Rome or from Aventicum the Roman Capital City of the Helvetii in Switzerland http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/classics/staff/frey-kupper/