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| Corpus Nummorum Antiquorum | |
|---|---|
| Name | Corpus Nummorum Antiquorum |
| Country | International |
| Language | Multilingual |
| Subject | Numismatics |
| Genre | Reference work |
| Publisher | International academic institutions |
| Pub date | 1924–present |
Corpus Nummorum Antiquorum is an international scholarly project for the systematic cataloguing of ancient coinage initiated in the early 20th century. Conceived to create a comparative corpus of Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Celtic, and Near Eastern coins, it brought together museums, universities, and national academies across Europe and beyond, producing descriptive plates and critical descriptions to support research in classical archaeology and ancient history. The project influenced numismatic standards used by curators at institutions such as the British Museum, the Louvre, the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, and the Smithsonian Institution.
The initiative originated in discussions among specialists associated with the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, the British School at Rome, and the École Française in the aftermath of World War I, drawing on precedents like the publications of the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the British Museum Catalogue. Early promoters included figures linked to the Institut de France, the Royal Numismatic Society, and the American Numismatic Society, who coordinated with the Union Académique Internationale and national academies in Italy, Germany, and Belgium. During the interwar period institutions such as the Museo Nazionale Romano, the Vatican Museums, the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, and the Musée du Louvre contributed plates and inventories. World War II disrupted work, but postwar recovery involved renewed collaboration with the Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, the Académie Royale de Belgique, and the Hellenic Institute. In the late 20th century partnerships expanded to include the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, while the 21st century saw contributions from the Hermitage Museum, the Getty Research Institute, and university departments at Oxford, Cambridge, and Harvard.
The corpus covers coinages of classical antiquity held in public collections, private archives, and archaeological contexts, including issues from city-states such as Athens, Syracuse, and Pergamum, imperial mints like Rome, Constantinople, and Antioch, and regional centers including Ephesus, Cyrene, and Tarsus. Editorial responsibility is distributed among national committees affiliated with bodies such as the International Numismatic Council, the Union Académique Internationale, and the Comité International de Numismatique, while museums including the British Museum, the Louvre, the Staatliche Museen, and the Museo Archeologico Nazionale coordinate local submissions. Contributors often cross-reference collections at the Hermitage, the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, the Museo Archeologico Regionale in Sicily, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France to standardize attributions, die studies, and hoard evidence derived from excavations at sites like Pompeii, Olympia, and Sardis.
Volumes typically present plates of coins photographed or drawn by specialists from collections at the British Museum, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Vatican Museums, and the Museo Nazionale Romano, accompanied by descriptive texts following conventions shared with the Royal Numismatic Society and the American Numismatic Society. Series organization mirrors national and regional divisions employed by the Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, and the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, with monographic treatments devoted to issuers such as Alexander the Great, Augustus, Hadrian, Constantine, and Theodosius. Illustrative work often references typologies developed by numismatists at the Fitzwilliam Museum, the Ashmolean Museum, and the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire Genève, and cataloguing standards aligned with those of the International Numismatic Council and university presses at Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press.
Editorial oversight involves committees drawn from the Royal Numismatic Society, the American Numismatic Society, the International Numismatic Council, and national academies including the Académie Royale de Belgique and the Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, with lead editors frequently drawn from university departments at Oxford, Cambridge, Heidelberg, and the University of Paris. Contributors include curators and scholars affiliated with the British Museum, the Louvre, the Hermitage Museum, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, as well as historians specializing in figures such as Pericles, Philip II of Macedon, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, and Marcus Aurelius. Peer review and comparisons invoke reference works and catalogs by numismatists connected to the Fitzwilliam Museum, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, and research centers like the Getty Research Institute and the Institute of Classical Studies.
The corpus has been cited widely in archaeological reports from excavations at Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Ephesus, in numismatic studies of Alexander the Great, Augustus, Diocletian, Constantine, and Justinian, and in art-historical analyses at the British Museum, the Louvre, and the Hermitage. Scholars at institutions including Harvard, Yale, the University of Chicago, and the École Normale Supérieure have used the volumes for die studies, hoard analyses, and provenance research that intersect with work by the International Council on Monuments and Sites and national heritage agencies. Critical reception has acknowledged the project's durable standards while noting challenges documented by reviewers associated with the Royal Numismatic Society, the American Numismatic Society, and the International Numismatic Council concerning coverage of private collections, repatriation debates involving the British Museum and the Getty Museum, and methodological shifts prompted by digital initiatives at the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the Getty Research Institute.
Recent efforts to digitize plates and metadata have involved partnerships among the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the British Museum, the Smithsonian Institution, the Getty Research Institute, and the École Française de Rome, integrating records with platforms run by the International Numismatic Council, Europeana, and the Digital Classicist community. Digitization projects coordinate with university initiatives at Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, and Leiden and with museum databases maintained by the Hermitage, the Louvre, the Rijksmuseum, and the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin to provide searchable images, provenance notes, and hoard data for researchers working on subjects from Athens to Constantinople. Ongoing collaborations with the Union Académique Internationale, the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, and national academies aim to reconcile conventional print volumes with online repositories used by curators, archaeologists, and numismatists affiliated with the Royal Numismatic Society and the American Numismatic Society.
Category:Numismatic catalogues