ANS Newsletter - Fall 1997

Museum News:

THIRD ARAB-BYZANTINE FORUM

      The third annual Arab-Byzantine Forum took place at the Society on November 15, with six presentations on the Byzantine-type coinage issued under Arab rule in Bilad al Sham in the seventh and eighth century. The informal gathering brought together collectors and academics for most of a Saturday to discuss the origins and evolution of this fascinating and still somewhat mysterious coinage family. Because the Society's East Hall was occupied by medal exhibits, the forum met in the larger but reconfigured West Hall, where a table and projectors were set up to reproduce the informal seminar-style ambiance of the forum's usual venue.
      After coffee, doughnuts, and a brief welcome from Society Curator of Islamic Coins Michael Bates, the first talk was given by the participant who had come the farthest, Tony Goodwin of Sussex, England, who spoke on "Arab-Byzantine Coins: The Significance of Overstrikes." Although overstrikes are rare, comprising some 1 to 2 percent of the known examples, they offer the possibility of establishing contemporary circulation of issues and sometimes chronological sequence. Goodwin showed examples of three classes: Arab issues overstruck on Byzantine coins, which are extremely scarce and so far include no examples of late seventh-century undertypes; Arab-Byzantine issues and their imitations overstruck on other Arab-Byzantine coins; and Arabic-type coppers overstruck on Arab-Byzantine issues.
      Peter Lampinen followed, with an update on the seventh and eighth-century coin finds from Caesarea Maritima on the coast of modern Israel. Most of the site yields few if any coins of the era, but some have been found at the very highest point of the town, suggesting a limited occupation there, perhaps military, while the city as a whole was unoccupied from the Persian and Arab invasions until the ninth century. These two papers, with the lively discussions they engendered, took up the entire morning and the discussion in fact had to be cruelly truncated so that the group could descend to the old ANS seminar room for lunch.
Afterwards, Charles Karukstis discussed the al-wafa lilah coinage, a group of irregular coins with no legible inscription but the eponymous Arab slogan, which means "honesty is God's." The largest group of these, apparently from a hoard, was published by Milstein in Israel Numismatic Journal 10. Karukstis added new dies and die links to the corpus, and discussed the relationship of the group to the regular Arab-Byzantine coinage of Damascus, which seems more problematic than Milstein suggested.
      Harry Bone has continued the work on Umayyad copper coinage that he began in the Graduate Seminar of 1996. Recently he has been studying the administrative divisions of Bilad al-Sham (which corresponds to the Roman diocese Oriens, from the Egyptian boundary up the coast to the Taurus mountains and the Euphrates, often simply called Syria) in the Byzantine and Arab periods. The subject is controversial, since it is not clear how the late Roman provinces of the fourth century were transformed into the five military districts that are known in the eighth century. The administrative organization of the country seems certainly to have relevance to the organization of coin production, while the numismatic evidence may help clarify our understanding of territorial administration.
      Following Bone, Tony Goodwin described current developments in British research on Arab-Byzantine coinage (a parallel workshop on "The Seventh-Century Coinage of Syria," which inspired the ANS gathering, meets annually in London). Jay Galst then ended the general presentations with beautiful slides of treasures from his collection.
      The fourth forum will take place on the second or third Saturday of November 1998. Charles Karukstis has agreed to organize next year's gathering, to which all specialists in the coinage or history of the region and its neighbors are invited. The forum is co-sponsored by the Oriental Numismatic Society.

International Numismatic Congress

      Numismatists from all over the world assembled in Berlin on September 7 for the International Numismatic Congress, a week of scholarly and collegial intercourse which saw the ANS well represented. All six members of the curatorial staff attended and were among the some 400 scholars from more than 43 countries who gave papers. The Congress took place at Humboldt University on Unter den Linden in the former eastern zone, amid imperial magnificence under restoration and future ministries under construction. The University is not far from Museum Island where the Coin Cabinet of the Bode Museum was closed (understandably, since its staff were busy running the Congress), but the Pergamon Museum and other glories of German museology were visited by many Congress participants.

Panel Sessions

      The organizers of the Congress, headed by Dr. Bernd Kluge, Director of the Berlin Munzkabinett, broke the presentations into six concurrent sections--antiquity, medieval, modern, Oriental, numismatics in general, and medals. Each of the six sections had its own sequence of sessions, beginning with one-hour plenary lectures for the entire section and followed by morning and afternoon panels. There were often two or more concurrent sessions for the same section. The Oriental section, for example, featured a continued series of panels on Islamic numismatics and related subjects, and a second series alternating between Indian and Chinese numismatics.
      There were also workshops for brief reports and informal discussion, on computers and numismatics; coin finds; museums and research; European numismatic geography in modern times; medals as numismatic objects; and three workshops on recent work and news in Islamic, South Asian, and Far Eastern numismatics.
      No Congress is complete without social occasions to meet old friends, make new ones, and catch up on all the latest gossip. Before the formal opening, on Sunday evening, all Congress participants were invited to a reception to celebrate the opening of "Die Kelten im Osten," an exhibition mounted and sponsored by the Munich firm Lanz Numismatik.

ANS Breakfast

      For the ANS, the most notable occasion was, naturally, our own breakfast, offered at the Sheraton Intercontinental through the generosity of Council member Jonathan Kagan. The evening before, a certain amount of grousing was heard from Europeans who had no conception of going out to breakfast at 7:30 in the morning, or, in many cases, of breakfast at any hour. Those who came, however (some 25 percent more than the number invited), found nothing to complain about, either on the heavily-laden buffet table ("Qu'est-ce que c'est un 'pancake'?") or at the many tables of happily chattering numismatists.
      Every evening had its reception, first at the Markisches Museum (a historic residence) as guests of the Berlin Senate, then Tuesday as guests of the Deutsche Numismatische Gesellschaft, the Numismatische Gesellschaft zu Berlin, and the Verband der Deutschen Munzenhandler in the University, and on Wednesday at the Kulturforum Kemperplatz (a museum of contemporary art) which was hosted by the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin/Preussischer Kulturbesitz (the result of the merger of the museum systems of East and West Berlin) and by Dresdner Bank. Thursday, the last night in Berlin, had something quite special--a four-hour boat trip on the River Spree through former East and West, with an ample dinner on board. On Friday, Congress participants could choose from two excursions, either to Potsdam and the castles of Prussia, or to Dresden and the museums and forests of Saxony.

Staff Presentations

      Every member of the curatorial staff presented a paper based on current research. Metcalf, in "The Later Alexandrian Coinage," dealt with the last Roman tetradrachm coinage of Alexandria. He drew his colleagues' attention to the decline in the actual number of coins struck from about the ninth year of Diocletian's reign (A.D. 292/3) onward, in spite of what seems to be an increasing variety of types over the years. Even though officina marks were placed on the coins starting in Diocletian's year 8 (291/2), there is still no satisfactory analysis of how the mint was organized; but it was certainly not, as one might have expected in view of the existence of four rulers' images, quadripartite. Metcalf also chaired another panel session on Roman numismatics, and co-chaired, with Kenneth Jonsson of Sweden, the workshop on computers and numismatics.
      Carmen Arnold-Biucchi gave a paper called "Die Identities and Style: Problems in Attributing Lysimachi." She noted the occurrence of obverse die links between coins of Lysimachus of Thrace that were traditionally attributed to different mints by E. T. Newell and Margaret Thompson. Careful research has increased the number of these links, which has become too high to be explained as mere coincidence or occasional transferred dies. Similarly, nearly identical style can be observed on coins purportedly of different mints. Were the dies really transferred from one mint to another or did the engravers travel? No solution to these problems can be offered at this point but it seems that many mint attributions must be reconsidered.
      Michael Bates spoke on "The Use of Names and Titles on Coins of the Abbasid Caliphate." He argued that officials were named on the coins of the caliphate in its first epoch, from 750 to 833, only by virtue of their direct authority over the territory where the mints were located, and not because of their rank as caliph, successor-elect, or member of the ruling family. The great diversity of practice among the mints indicates a very loose regulation of inscriptions, allowing even officials of low level to name themselves. After 833, in contrast, only officials of the central government were to be named: the caliphs themselves, their designated successors, and a very few officials selected for special honor. Bates also presided over one of the other Islamic sessions, and was co-chair of the workshop on Islamic numismatics.
      John Kleeberg was honored by an invitation to deliver one of the plenary lectures in the section for modern currency. His paper, "The International Circulation of Spanish American Coinage and the Financing of the Napoleonic Wars," dealt with the efforts of France and Britain to finance their war efforts. While Napoleon had to resort mainly to conquest, seizures, and indemnities, the British benefited from the silver imports of the East India Company and from their access to the silver dollar production of Spanish America. The evidence of hoards and countermarks shows that about 60 percent of the silver trade coins in circulation in the British Isles during the period of the Napoleonic wars was minted in Mexico City, with the remainder about evenly split between Potosi and Lima. The uprising against Spanish rule in Mexico in 1810 cut off the bullion supply and led to a monetary crisis in both Britain and the Continent.
      Kleeberg also chaired a session on "Modern Times." He made it a point to attend many of the papers by former ANS Graduate Seminar students, which were uniformly of a very high level. Kleeberg's linguistic skills, matched by his diplomacy in editing, led to a contribution to the success of the Survey of Numismatic Research that was recognized on the title page.
      Society Curatorial Assistant Elena Stolyarik was a member of a panel devoted to the numismatics of the northern Black Sea littoral in antiquity, with colleagues from Poland and Russia. Her paper, "The Gold Coinage of the Bosporan Kingdom under the Late Spartocids," used stylistic, epigraphical, and archaeological evidence, and classified the 14 known staters into four chronological periods of the late hellenistic history of the Bosporan kingdom. Her paper received kind remarks from Dr. N. A. Frolova, one of the major authorities on Bosporan numismatics. For Stolyarik, the Congress was an important opportunity to renew contacts with colleagues from Russia and Ukraine, including discussion of a project to publish materials relating to Black Sea cities in the ANS and the Historical Museum in Moscow. Her participation in the Congress was supported by a grant from the International Numismatic Commission.
      Alan Stahl's paper, entitled "The Orte Hoard of Tuscan Grossi," was delivered in one of the medieval sessions. He examined the contents of a hoard discovered in the 1950s, part of which was purchased at the time by the ANS. A letter from the dealer to former curator Henry Grunthal appears to be the only surviving inventory of the hoard. It is one of the few known finds of silver coins from central Italy in the mid-thirteenth century and has never been mentioned in the literature.
      Twenty-one alumni of the Society's Graduate Seminar in Numismatics participated in the Congress. They were Prof. Robert A. Bauslaugh (1972), "The End of the Posthumous Alexanders of Cyme and the Beginning of the Wreathed Coinage of the Second Century C.E."; Harry James Bone (1996), "Dating the Post-Reform Copper Coinage of Umayyad Damascus"; Sarah E. Cox (1988), "The Later Sestertii of Tiberius"; C. T. H. R. Ehrhardt (1971), "Pseudo-Augustus, Pseudo-Political"; Stefan Heidemann, (1993), "Entwicklung des Geldwesens in Syrien wahrend des 12./13. Jahrhunderts"; Ann-Marie Knoblauch (1990), "Defining the Satyr in the Archaic and Classical Periods: The Numismatic Evidence"; John H. Kroll (1963), "Mints and Mint Debris in the Athenian Agora"; Paul Legutko (1996), "The Revolt of Macrianus and Quietus and Its Effect on the Alexandrian Coinage, A.D. 260-263"; Brooks Levy (1952), "The Autonomous Silver of Sidon, 107/6 B.C.-43/4 A.D."; Constantin A. Marinescu (1985), "The Posthumous Lysimachus Coinage and the Dual Monetary System at Byzantium and Chalcedon in the Third Century B.C."; Judith Nolan (1995), "The Lubeck Florin and Hanseatic Trade"; Isabelle A. Pafford (1996), "Megara: the Denominational System and Chronology of the Hellenistic Coinage"; Cleopatra Papaevangelou (1997), "The Economy of Thessaly during the Archaic and Classical Periods"; Stephen K. Scher (1958), "The Renaissance Portrait Medal in Its Historical Context"; Stuart D. Sears (1987), "A New Look at the Metrology of Early Muslim Coinage"; Amy C. Smith (1994), "The Transition to Tyche on Eastern Greek Coins"; Michael N. Smith (1995), "The Archaic Coinage of Lete." In addition, Bone, Theodore V. Buttrey (1952), Heidemann, Gilles Hennequin (1969), and Sears chaired panels. Three members of the curatorial staff, whose contributions were previously mentioned, are also Alumni (Arnold-Biucchi, Metcalf, and Stahl).
      Several members of the Society's Council participated in the Congress. The presentation of Stephen K. Scher, listed among our Seminar Alumni, was one of the plenary lectures. John Kroll also gave a paper, listed with the other Alumni. Jere Bacharach spoke on "Islamic Coins as a Source for Art History: The Case of the Coinage of the Pre-Ottoman Rulers of Egypt." Arthur Houghton, ANS President, presided over a panel on the coinage of Lysimachus. William F. Spengler, Chair of the new ANS Committee for Central and South Asian Coins, gave a paper on "Some Discoveries Relating to the Early Coins of Kashmir," and co-chaired the workshop on South Asian numismatics.

INC Business Meeting

      On the last day of Congress meetings, the International Numismatic Commission held its business meeting. A number of amendments were made to the constitution, but a proposal to deprive Honorary Members of voting rights was soundly defeated. A new Council for the Commission was elected, including the re-election of William Metcalf as a member and his election as First Vice-President, with Andrew Burnett of the British Museum as President (Metcalf is the fourth successive ANS member of the Council to be elected vice-president in his second term). The Commission members voted to hold the next International Numismatic Congress, which will be the thirteenth, in Madrid in 2003.

INTERNATIONAL LISTINGS

One of the informal conversational topics at the ANS breakfast in Berlin was listing international numismatic meetings—their locations, dates and times, topics, and participation details--in the ANSNewsletter. An international coordinator who can compile and provide this information is needed to make such a feature a regular part of the Newsletter. Obviously, this will require early reporting of scheduled events so that the announcements will precede rather than follow the listed events. Anyone interested in organizing such a feature should contact the ANS.

LIBRARY NEWS

      It is a pleasure to report that a new Assistant Librarian has been hired to fill the position left vacant by the departure of Grace Lin earlier this year. Tamara Lee Fultz of Brooklyn, NY, began her employment on October 28. Ms. Fultz's experience, language capabilities, and familiarity with rare book cataloging procedures will undoubtedly prove a great asset to the library.
      In recent weeks, the Librarian has been in regular contact with W. L. Hill Consulting, Dallas, TX, in order to determine the best means of converting our existing card catalogue records to a machine readable format. Upon completion of a request for a proposal and selection of a firm that will convert our existing records, the library will move ahead with its plans for an on-line catalogue and records access via the ANS website.
      During August, the library of our late Council member, Allen Lovejoy, was donated to the Society by Mrs. Lovejoy. A mixture of monographs and periodicals, the Lovejoy collection represents a good working library which contains many standard works on United States coinage. John M. Barnes of Sherman Oaks, CA, has made a generous donation of two interesting documents. The first of these is a special citation from the Treasury Department to Mrs. Helen A. Kemp for responding to the Mint's appeal to American citizens to return the U.S. cent to circulation. It is signed by Mary Brooks, Director of the Mint and William E. Simon, Secretary of the Treasury. The second item is a letter from coin dealer Barney Bluestone, dated October 9, 1929, to Mr. Ben F. Fuld of Los Angeles, regarding U.S. pattern coins.
      Among the publications generously donated by authors and publishers are Maynor Bikai, et al., Tyre: The Shrine of Apollo (Amman, 1996), donated by joint author William J. Fulco, S.J.; Mats Cullhed, CONSERVATOR URBIS SUAE: Studies in the Politics and Propaganda of the Emperor Maxentius (Stockholm, 1994); Christian E. Dekesel, Bibliotheca Nummaria: Bibliography of 16th Century Numismatic Books. Illustrated and Annotated Catalogue, with a foreword by Professor Peter Berghaus (London/Crestline, CA, 1997), donated by George F. Kolbe; James Ermatinger, The Economic Reforms of Diocletian (St. Katharinen, Germany, 1996); Philippe Escande, Les medailles d'Algerie: L'histoire de l'Algerie de 1830 a 1962 racontee par les medailles (Helette, France, 1996); K. Ganesh, and Dr. Girijapathy, The Coins of the Vijayanagar Empire (Bangalore, India, 1997); Brian Kritt, The Early Seleucid Mint of Susa (Lancaster, PA, 1997); Richard Lobel, Mark Davidson, Allan Hailstone, and Eleni Calligas, Coincraft's 1998 Standard Catalogue of English & UK Coins: 1066 to Date (London, 1997); Numismatic Museum, Athens, Coins & Numismatics (Athens, 1996); Stephan Sombart, Franciae IV: Catalogue des monnaies royales francaises de Francois, Ier a Henri IV, 1540-1610 (Paris, 1997); S. Suresh, Roman Antiquities in Tamilnadu (Madras, India, 1992); R. S. Yeoman, A Guide Book of United States Coins, 51st ed. 1998 (Racine, WI, 1997); R. S. Yeoman, 1998 Handbook of United States Coins with Premium List, 55th ed. (Racine, WI, 1997). Readers who wish further details regarding the above publications should address their inquiries to the Librarian.

NEW ASSISTANT LIBRARIAN

      A native of central Pennsylvania, Tamara L. Fultz grew up in Northumberland, graduating from Shikellamy High School in Sunbury. She majored in Classical Languages at Pennsylvania State in State College where she also worked in the library as part of the work/study program.. Moving on to Philadelphia, Fultz received her graduate degree in Library Science from Drexel University.
      Still enamored with the classics, Fultz received a teaching assistantship to Indiana University in Bloomington, where she received her M.A. in Latin. She returned to the Philadelphia area to work for a rare book library (Library Company of Philadelphia) that specializes in Americana.
      Fultz then moved to New York to work at the Brooklyn Historical Society. Her background with rare books qualified her for participation in a specialized cataloguing seminar at the Rare Book School, the University of Virginia, Charlottesville (formerly located at Columbia University in New York City). Upon completion, she returned to the Brooklyn Historical Society where she subsequently learned of the ANS position.
      Beside the written word, Fultz is interested in cinema—old films, art films, and independent productions. She also enjoys live performances when she has the chance, particularly Mozart and anything with Cecilia Bartoli.

COINS AND CAMERAS

The new Society photographer is Wayne Moore who spent his childhood in various parts of California. In his teens, he visited an aunt and uncle in Saudi Arabia and ended up going to school in Lugano, Switzerland, for his senior year in high school. He went on to college at the American University in Beirut, where he majored in political science and public administration but also acquired bits and pieces of ancient pocket change. Returning to the U.S., he spent time at Portland State and at the University of Oregon in the field of Middle Eastern Studies. Suddenly curious about the coins he had accumulated in Lebanon, he took some courses in the field of ancient Greek studies. And in order to skillfully illustrate his research about those coins, he taught himself how to photograph them.
Moore has been of late a journeyman coin photographer, working briefly for Numismatic Fine Arts, but combining free lance coin photography with other jobs. He has developed a love for classic cameras to go along with classical coins, and his current special interests include older Leica and Canon range finders. His favorite camera (this month) is a Canon 4SB from early 1955. Should he reap a windfall in the near future, what kind of camera would he buy? He'd move to a Greek island in the Mediterranean and consider the options.

BACK TO BUSINESS

Tarnisha Smart has recently joined the ANS Business Office staff. A native of New York City, she is a confirmed Bronx dweller, having graduated from Lehman High School and then spent one and a half years at Bronx Community College where she studied Systems and Programming. She went on to attend Drake Business School and graduated with a major in Accounting, with a specialty in Administrative Skills.
Smart has a three year old son, who is already a video games person while his mother pursues other computer interests--including keyboarding the text of a romance novel she is writing. She was an active high school tennis player, winning the MVP trophy in her senior year, and follows the tennis tour in her spare time.

BULLOWA RECEPTION

The annual David M. Bullowa Memorial Conference will be held on Saturday, January 10, 1998, at 3:00 P.M. Three speakers, all alumni of the 1997 Graduate Seminar, will report on the results of their work. They are John C. Hansen, University of North Carolina, "The Coinage of the Hellenistic Boeotian League"; Carlos Noreña, University of Pennsylvania, "Vespasian's Coinage and the Assertion of Dynasty"; and Joel Allen, Yale University, "Trajan's COS V Aurei." The public is invited to attend this meeting which is made possible by the generosity of Mrs. Catherine Bullow-Moore.

New Workshop:
CHINA WORKSHOP

Members with an interest in the traditional coinage of China are reminded that on Saturday, February 21, 1998, the Society will hold a workshop on the collecting and study of Chinese cash coins. Plans for the workshop are evolving and it is expected to be an all-day event with knowledgeable experts on hand to introduce the ins and outs of cash coins with a few papers on special topics. A small exhibit of treasures from the ANS collection will be on display. There will be a fee for the workshop to cover the cost of lunch, coffee, and snacks. Send your name and address to Michael Bates to be on the mailing list for announcements and information on the workshop.

New Workshop:
EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

Later in the year, on Saturday May 16, a new Islamic forum will be available for presentations, formal or casual, on the coinage of the eastern Mediterranean in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The focus will be on cross-cultural coinages, such as Crusader, Armenian, Atabeg coppers, Georgian, and early Ilkhanid, along with late Byzantine and Islamic coinage. Proposals are invited. The mailing list for this meeting is also being maintained by Michael Bates.

ASIAN COMMITTEES CHANGED

      To better reflect specialized interests, the ANS Committees on Islamic and Asian coins have been re-organized. The Islamic and South Asian Committee has been divided, while new members have been appointed for the East Asian Committee.
      The new committee resulting from the reorganization will be the Committee for South and Central Asian Coins, which will have as its sphere of interest the coinage of ancient Central Asia (except for the Bactrian Greek coinage), the South Asian subcontinent throughout history, and Southeast Asia. The chair of the new committee will be William F. Spengler, the former chair of the combined committee. Members of the committee will be Lawrence A. Adams (new), Martha Carter (new), Marie H. Martin, Jyoti Rai (new), and William B. Warden, Jr.
      The Committee on Islamic Coins will now have William B. Warden, Jr., as chair, with Jere Bacharach, Gregory Cole (new), Kenneth M. MacKenzie, and William F. Spengler as members.
      The Committee on East Asian Coins is still chaired by Daniel Cruson. Its members now are Joseph E. Boling, Kenneth E. Bressett, David Jen (new), and Frederic G. Withington (new last year).
      Michael L. Bates, Society Curator of Islamic Coins, is Secretary for all three committees. Meetings of the committees are scheduled in conjunction with the New York International Numismatic Convention at the World Trade Center on December 6, with the intention of meeting every year on the Saturday of NYINC. It is hoped that each committee can also meet in the spring in connection with an ANS Council Meeting. Suggestions for committee activities are welcome (keeping in mind that the members of the committees are volunteers with limited time).

1997/8 HAMAD FELLOW

      The Shaykh Hamad Bin Abdullah Al-Thani Fellowship in Islamic Numismatics for the academic year 1997-98 has been awarded to Roxani Margariti, a graduate student at Princeton University.
      Ms. Margariti is a specialist in nautical archeology and maritime history. She just finished her M.A. work in the Nautical Archeology Program headed by George Bass at Texas A. and M. University with her thesis on a ship with a cargo of pottery wrecked in the second millennium B. C. off Seytan Deresi, Turkey. She also worked in Turkey several summers on the Institute of Nautical Archeology's excavation of a Bronze Age shipwreck at Uluburun.
      Meanwhile, she has been taking three years of Arabic preparing to study maritime trade and society in the western Indian Ocean during the medieval period. At Princeton, she is enrolled in the Ph.D. program in the Department of Near Eastern Studies. She will write her dissertaion on the social history of medieval maritime communities in Arabia under the supervision of Avrom Udovitch and Thomas Leisten.
      She is a qualified scientific diver and has participated in underwater surveys and excavations in Greece at Kythera, Iria, and Dhokos, as well as the Uluburun wreck in Turkey. On shore she spent three seasons in Oman recording traditional wooden vessels, and has participated in archeological excavation, conservation and recording at a Neolithic cave site at Diros, in the archaic temple at Koukounaries, and in the citadel of Mycenae, all in Greece; at Ed Dur, a Parthian-period site in the United Arab Emirates; and in the keep of Lewis Castle in Sussex, England.
      Her undergraduate education was at University College London, where she received her B.A. in archeology with first class honors, including a dissertation "Organization and Tools of the Dilmun Trade.'
      The Fellowship has been made possible by a generous donation to the Society's Islamic Department from Shaykh Hamad of Qatar, a Gold Circle member of the ANS, who was recognized as the International Honoree of the Society at the Tribute Dinner for Eric P. Newman last October 25.
      The Hamad Fellowship is intended to combine service to the Society with training in Islamic numismatics and museum practice. Ms. Margariti expects to be at the Society every Thursday until May 1998. The Fellowship provides a stipend of $3,000.
      Dr. Parvaneh Pourshariati, the 1996/7 Hamad Fellow, reorganized the Society's pre-Islamic coinage from Khurasan, Tukharistan, and Sogdia, in addition to general cataloging and maintenance. She spent this summer in Paris, working on an Jquipe of the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique with Prof. Ryka Gyselen, the specialist in Sasanian coins and seals. Dr. Pourshariati has also been awarded a Social Science Research Council Grant for research and travel in Turkey in 1997-98.

BATES IN STRASBOURG

Society Curator of Islamic Coins was among the participants in a symposium, Materiaux pour l'histoire economique du monde iranien, held in the Salle "Fustel de Coulanges" of the Palais Universitaire in Strasbourg, France, in September after the International Numismatic Congress, with a presentation on "Iranian Coinage in the Seventh Century." Twenty-four papers were read, by invitation, on subjects ranging from Achaemenid times to the nineteenth century, using evidence from documents, literary texts, archeological excavations, and numismatic collections.
Bates was by no means the only numismatist present. There was an "atelier numismatique, anime" by Reka Gyselen, the noted specialist in Sasanian and Arab-Sasanian coins and seals, who was one of the two organizers of the symposium for the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (the other being Maria Szuppe of Strasbourg University) and by Lutz Ilisch, curator of the Tubingen University Islamic collection. This was a period of general discussion, in which the numismatists and historians present tried to come to terms with some of the perplexing questions of ancient coinage, including the organization and control of mints and the role of coinage in the economy.

RUSSIAN VISITOR

For the last month, Vera Guruljova, Keeper of the Byzantine Coins at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, has been doing research at the ANS. A graduate of St. Petersburg University, she has begun an extensive examination of the coins of the last rulers of the Byzantine Empire, the Palaeologans (1261-1453).The ANS is one of several institutions she is visiting, having already spent time at Dunbarton Oaks working on their collection of Byzantine coins.

BOOK PRIZE TO SCHWARTZ

      The 1997 Islamic and South Asian Committee Book Prize has been awarded to Dr. Florian Schwarz for his volume of the Sylloge Numorum Arabicorum Tubingen, XIVd Harasan IV Gazna/Kabul (Tubingen and Berlin: Ernst Wasmuth Verlag, 1995). This volume, which describes and illustrates 1,167 coins, covers the coinage of a part of the world that has never been adequately catalogued.
      The committee recognized in particular Schwarz's painstaking care and diligence in the classification and attribution of the many and extremely diverse issues of the Ghaznavid rulers of Ghazna and Kabul in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, as well as the useful discussion and careful presentation of the coinage of the Durrani and Barakzay amirs of Afghanistan. The excellent photography of the volume also drew comment.
      The volume includes the coins of the towns of Bamiyan, Panjhir, Ghanza, Farwan, Firuzkuh, Qaristan and Ka bul, all in the center of modern Afghanistan, as well as coins surely of the region that cannot yet be assigned to a mint. It is preceded by Schwarz's informative introduction and several pages showing the Arabic inscriptions on Ghaznavid dirhams.
      The prize of $250 is normally given annually and will be next awarded for books on any aspect of Islamic numismatics published in 1996 and 1997. Authors are encouraged to bring their work to the attention of the committee.

AIA/APA MEETING
The Archaeological Institute of America in conjunction with the American Philological Association will hold its ninety-ninth annual meeting in Chicago from December 27 through December 30. There will be a colloquium of interest both to numismatists and ancient historians on "New Insights into the Transition from Hacksilber to Coinage" on Tuesday morning from 9 A.M. to 12 P.M. It has been organized by Miriam S. Balmuth, professor emeritus at Tufts University. Among the participants will be ANS Councillors John H. Kroll and Thomas Martin.