Melvadius Posted October 30, 2009 Report Share Posted October 30, 2009 First of all, please forget the adjective naive; I'm sorry if it offended you at all, because that was not my intention .It is well known in archaeological and numismatic circles that you have to adapt the theory to the available evidence, not the other way:) . You simply can't expect us to distort the observed hoard incidence just to fit it with "all those reasons". No I have said that the mathematical model which is being proposed by this research will not work in every instance nor in every period of history it will only work where the start and end date of the hoard can be determined precisely and then compared with historical records which in the cases listed have already provided the same answer. It apparently takes no account of differing periods of deposition instead taking an averaged deposition rate. Periods without precisely dated coin series like much of Early Anglo-Saxon England cannot be assessed using this model. what you called the "composition" of the hoards was rather homogeneous; ie. "savings" and "emergency" hoards are all and the same; "ritual" hoards were essentially absent. I am sorry but I acidently added 'regular' to the line below where I intended. You have not said why ritual hoards were absent - were they not included in the research or are they totally absent from the period surveyed? I would be more than glad to discuss common alternative reasons for the non-recovery of hoards, instead of death... if you have actually proposed any! . I would refer you back to post #9 in this thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sylla Posted October 30, 2009 Report Share Posted October 30, 2009 (edited) Latium antiquum a Tiberi Cerceios servatum est m. p. L longitudine: tam tenues primordio imperi fuere radices. colonis saepe mutatis tenuere alii aliis temporibus, Aborigenes, Pelasgi, Arcades, Siculi, Aurunci, Rutuli et ultra Cerceios Volsci, Osci, Ausones, unde nomen Lati processit ad Lirim amnem. in principio est Ostia colonia ab Romano rege deducta, oppidum Laurentum, lucus Iovis Indigetis, amnis Numicius, Ardea a Dana Edited January 1, 2010 by sylla Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melvadius Posted October 30, 2009 Report Share Posted October 30, 2009 As I have already indicated in my previous postings there are three basic hoard types: Savings Hoards which because of the charateristics of the coins found were built up over a number of years, sometimes over generations. Emergency hoards - usually a collection of coins currently in circulation - possibly in advance of a trip or in advance of an invasion/ period of social unrest. Ritual hoards - deposits made for a ritual reason - in Anglo-Saxon terms the burial deposition of a mixture of mainly Merovingian and some 'fake' coins in the Sutton Hoo ship burial is a good example - possibly as Grierson has suggested intended as payment to Charon and the crew of the ship in the underworld. There are numerous other forms of ritual deposition but that suffices as an example. The internal characteristics of each type of hoard can have significant differences and consequently explain some of the inconsistencies in the 'model', especially if anyone atempted to use it in periods when the coin sequence is not as well documented as the Republican period. Otherwise I refer you back to my previous postings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sylla Posted October 30, 2009 Report Share Posted October 30, 2009 (edited) Latium antiquum a Tiberi Cerceios servatum est m. p. L longitudine: tam tenues primordio imperi fuere radices. colonis saepe mutatis tenuere alii aliis temporibus, Aborigenes, Pelasgi, Arcades, Siculi, Aurunci, Rutuli et ultra Cerceios Volsci, Osci, Ausones, unde nomen Lati processit ad Lirim amnem. in principio est Ostia colonia ab Romano rege deducta, oppidum Laurentum, lucus Iovis Indigetis, amnis Numicius, Ardea a Dana Edited January 1, 2010 by sylla Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M. Porcius Cato Posted October 31, 2009 Report Share Posted October 31, 2009 I'm kind of curious too about this 'ritual hoard' idea. On the one hand, the Romans were such a hard-nosed punch of pragmatists that it just beggars belief to think that they buried coin hoards to appease some deity. And when they were pious (which they sometimes were), when did they ever show it by burying *money*? What would a god do with money? Stinking entrails -- that makes sense... but money?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kosmo Posted November 1, 2009 Report Share Posted November 1, 2009 Maybe coins thrown in an well or spring? In time they would make a hoard... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Turchin Posted November 2, 2009 Report Share Posted November 2, 2009 Dear M. Porcius Cato, I saw the very interesting comparison, which you make in your post, of prosopographic data to the coin hoard incidence. Is this paper published? If yes, I would greatly appreciate a reprint. Please respond directly to my e-mail, as I am not a regular visitor on this forum. peter.turchin@uconn.edu Thank you, PT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Primus Pilus Posted November 2, 2009 Report Share Posted November 2, 2009 Dear M. Porcius Cato, I saw the very interesting comparison, which you make in your post, of prosopographic data to the coin hoard incidence. Is this paper published? If yes, I would greatly appreciate a reprint. Please respond directly to my e-mail, as I am not a regular visitor on this forum. peter.turchin@uconn.edu Thank you, PT The source data for the chart is here - no published paper per se, but rather a list with accompanying ancient source references: http://www.unrv.com/government/political-v...an-republic.php I don't recall that we ever published MPC's chart in conjunction with the above data, but he obviously posted it in this thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melvadius Posted November 2, 2009 Report Share Posted November 2, 2009 (edited) I'm kind of curious too about this 'ritual hoard' idea. On the one hand, the Romans were such a hard-nosed punch of pragmatists that it just beggars belief to think that they buried coin hoards to appease some deity. And when they were pious (which they sometimes were), when did they ever show it by burying *money*? What would a god do with money? Stinking entrails -- that makes sense... but money?? There can be a problem with some people's ideas of what constitutes a hoard - Casey writing in 1986 considered savings, emergency and purse hoards - the last of which are usually the contents of a purse which was lost in antiquity. However he also admits that the classifications can vary depending upon who is making the listing which as we have seen can lead to confiusion. My own tutor prefers the three classes I have already outlined and was of the view that currently amongst numismatists this is now a fairly representative way of general classification of hoards. Regarding your question about ritual hoards; quite simply in most early cultures there are numerous examples of what can only be described as ritual deposition of material sometimes not solely connected to burial's. In Britain and other parts of both the Celtic and Roman world there is a long tradition of votive offerings in sacred pools or wells - In the Roman period in Britain the coins found in bulk within the Roman Baths and temple of Aqua Sulis/ Minerva in Bath is one of the more extreme examples. The issue is normally that from the spread of finds in a single location it may be difficult arcaheologically and numismatically to identify if coin depostion was a single event or built up over a period of time - a single event would classify under UK law as a horde while deposition over time probably would not but it would also depend upon the archaeological information which could be and how the coroners court declared it. There are other sites AND periods where 'ritual' hordes could occur; there are at least two temple sites where late 3rd/4th century coin scatters have been found on paths around Romano-British temple (c/f Bradford and Goodchild). The act of deposition seemed to have been a single event and possibly one of the last acts before the temple went out of use. If the supposed dating is accurate I have heard it argued that it could have been done as a 'ritual' closure of the temple in the late Roman / early Anglo-Saxon period. QED there are three main types of hoard but when comparing older and newer texts you may not fiind agreement on which to group together. Edited November 2, 2009 by Melvadius Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sylla Posted November 2, 2009 Report Share Posted November 2, 2009 (edited) Latium antiquum a Tiberi Cerceios servatum est m. p. L longitudine: tam tenues primordio imperi fuere radices. colonis saepe mutatis tenuere alii aliis temporibus, Aborigenes, Pelasgi, Arcades, Siculi, Aurunci, Rutuli et ultra Cerceios Volsci, Osci, Ausones, unde nomen Lati processit ad Lirim amnem. in principio est Ostia colonia ab Romano rege deducta, oppidum Laurentum, lucus Iovis Indigetis, amnis Numicius, Ardea a Dana Edited January 1, 2010 by sylla Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Turchin Posted November 2, 2009 Report Share Posted November 2, 2009 Dear M. Porcius Cato, I saw the very interesting comparison, which you make in your post, of prosopographic data to the coin hoard incidence. Is this paper published? If yes, I would greatly appreciate a reprint. Please respond directly to my e-mail, as I am not a regular visitor on this forum. peter.turchin@uconn.edu Thank you, PT The source data for the chart is here - no published paper per se, but rather a list with accompanying ancient source references: http://www.unrv.com/government/political-v...an-republic.php I don't recall that we ever published MPC's chart in conjunction with the above data, but he obviously posted it in this thread. Thanks very much! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Turchin Posted November 3, 2009 Report Share Posted November 3, 2009 Dear Forum Participants, It's nice to see that our results have provoked a lively discussion. I see that there is some confusion about what a hoard means. Basically, while it is true that groups of coins get buried for a variety of reasons, the overwhelming majority of modern finds are unrecovered emergency hoards. Other types are mixed in, but they do not change the basic statistical relationship between instability and incidence of coin hoards. Remember that we used a different approach from the traditional one. Instead of examining carefully each census datum or each hoard, we estimated a mathematical model relating the two data sets to each other, in toto. This is clearly stated in the article. If people have difficulty accessing the article, I posted a reprint on my cliodynamics site: http://cliodynamics.info/ Check both the main article and the Online Supporting Information. For a popular account, which I checked, and from which I removed all inaccuracies (it is remarkable in how many ways science writers can get the story wrong) look here: http://today.uconn.edu/?p=5526 Finally, the best source to consult for Roman coin hoards specifically is Michael Crawford's original article. Since it is hard to get, I posted a PDF here for your convenience: http://cliodynamics.info/PDF/Crawford_1969.pdf If nothing else, just read the first page. It will clear a lot of questions. Best wishes to all, Peter Turchin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nephele Posted November 3, 2009 Report Share Posted November 3, 2009 It's nice to see you posting here at UNRV, Dr. Turchin. Welcome! (And looking forward to seeing more of your postings here). -- Nephele Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sylla Posted November 3, 2009 Report Share Posted November 3, 2009 (edited) Latium antiquum a Tiberi Cerceios servatum est m. p. L longitudine: tam tenues primordio imperi fuere radices. colonis saepe mutatis tenuere alii aliis temporibus, Aborigenes, Pelasgi, Arcades, Siculi, Aurunci, Rutuli et ultra Cerceios Volsci, Osci, Ausones, unde nomen Lati processit ad Lirim amnem. in principio est Ostia colonia ab Romano rege deducta, oppidum Laurentum, lucus Iovis Indigetis, amnis Numicius, Ardea a Dana Edited January 1, 2010 by sylla Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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