> Participants
Directors
Michel Amandry (EPHE)
Antony Hostein (Paris 1)
ANHIMA Associate members
Gabrièle Frija (Marne-la-Vallée)
External members
Andrew Burnett (British Museum, Londres) ; Fabrice Delrieux (Annecy) ; Christopher Howgego (Oxford) ; Jérôme Mairat (Oxford)
Institutions
Cabinet des Médailles (BnF, Paris), Ashmolean Museum (Oxford), British Museum (Londres), Université d’Oxford
> About
Roman Provincial Coinage [henceforth RPC] project, launched in the 1980s by Michel Amandry (Bibliothèque nationale de France) and Andrew Burnett (British Museum) is one of the latest major efforts to create a corpus of evidence for ancient history (M. Amandry and A. Burnett, “Preface,” in RPC I, p. XIII-XVII, supplemented by http://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/project/ for an account of the current state of the project). Each edited volume gives the scholarly community access to a vast store of unedited and original material that is indispensable for renewing our knowledge of the Roman Empire. The significance of each volume goes far beyond the circle of specialist readers, insofar as these reference works satisfy a strong social demand.
The publication of RPC I (1992 ; repr. 1998 and 2006) and II (1999), covering the early High Empire (1st cent. B.C. – end of the 1st cent. A.D., from the aftermath of the death of Caesar to the Flavians), and the partial online publication of RPC IV (http://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/) vividly demonstrated importance of this long-neglected coinage in the collective consciousness of the local communities of the Roman Empire (C. Howgego et al., Coinage and Identity in the Roman Provinces, Oxford, 2005). This is even more true for the middle 3rd century A.D., for which literary and epigraphic sources are scarce. The program essentially involves assembling a database of all issues of provincial coinage struck between A.D. 249 and 253, from Trajan Decius to Aemilianus. The material collected will be put online and published in the form of a printed catalogue, corresponding to the ninth volume of RPC. Like previous volumes, it will be composed in English. Consequently, a major goal of this project is the development a simple platform for a single tool to facilitate the data-entry, the print publication, and the online publication of the collected material. To this end, the program is structured in two components :
1- The first component is the publication of RPC III (Nerva-Hadrian) and IX (A.D. 249-253) online and in print in the same format as RPC I, II, and VII.1. The printed edition will consist of two volumes (vol. 1 : Introduction and Catalogue ; vol. 2 : Plates and Indexes).
2- The second component is to exploit this coinage as a historical source by mobilizing specialists in numismatics, the history of the Roman East, and the 3rd century A.D.
For the ANHIMA team, the project strives to maintain a high standard for the historical study of numismatic evidence and entails collaboration with other researchers on our team. On both the local and international level, the project seeks to create close ties between two institutions in Paris, the UMR 8210 and the Cabinet des Médailles of the BnF, brought together under a common institution, the INHA and the Carré Colbert (Paris 2). The great added-value of the database, which will be put online, ultimately lies in its future use for subsequent volumes of RPC. Once online, it will enable scholars to take advantage of the material in an innovative way, as proper to the digital humanities.
In order to carry out the project and make the launch of the online database as smooth as possible, the project calls for collaboration based on the complementary expertise of a select team of five specialists (numismatists, historians, curators). Slimmed down for practical and scholarly reasons, this team consists of A. Burnett and M. Amandry (et al.) for RPC III and E. Levante † (analysis, archives), J. Mairat (analysis, entries), and A. Hostein (analysis, entries) for RPC IX. The project RPC V (193-218 ; Achaea, Macedonia, Thrace, Bithynia, province of Asia) will also consist of M. Amandry, F. Delrieux, and G. Frija. Several institutions will be included among our privileged partners for documentary and bibliographical analysis (specialized works ; sale catalogues) : the department of Coins and Medals of the BnF, the British Museum, and the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.
For the year 2014, the RPC IX project was the recipient of funding after a call for proposals by the University of Paris 1 (Projet BasDoM 8,500 euros).
> Preliminary publications
– Hostein, A., « La visite de Caracalla à Pergame et à Laodicée du Lykos : l’apport des monnaies », dans A. Hostein, S. Lalanne (éd.), Les voyages des empereurs dans l’Orient romain (époques antonine et sévérienne), Paris : Errance, 2012, p. 205-227.
– Hostein, A., « Un nouvel exemplaire de RPC I, 4848 conservé à la BnF », Bulletin de la Société Française de Numismatique, 68e année, n° 10, 2013, p. 289 290.
> Ongoing and future projects
– M. Amandry, A. Burnett, et al., database for Roman Provincial Coinage III (Nerva-Hadrian), in progress, online launch anticipated in late 2014 ; publication in print in 2015.
– A. Hostein, E. Levante (†), and J. Mairat, database for Roman Provincial Coinage IX (Decius-Aemilian, 249-253), in progress since 2011, research trips (German, United Kingdom), online launch anticipated in late 2014 ; publication in print in 2015
– Data-entry and online publication of several workshops held for RPC V.2 (province of Asia under the Severans, beginning in 2016).
– Collected studies and workshops (2015-2016), including one on the names of magistrates appearing on the coins studied, in conjunction with the program “Government and Political Cultures in the Roman Empire” (directed by F. Chausson, B. Rossignol, and A. Hostein).
> Prospects
– Three printed volumes of RPC (III, V, and IX)
– Site internet du RPC : http://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/project/
– Articles et ouvrages collectifs
