Publishing and Promoting the Greek, Roman and Byzantine Coins in New Zealand

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What We Are Doing

Over the years the Canterbury Museum has amassed a collection of around 1000 Greek, Roman and Byzantine coins dating from 480 BCE to 1041 CE. In 2009 we began a long-term project with the Museum to study and publish these coins. The first phase, which involved updating their database with information and photographs, was about 80% completed when it was interrupted by the February 22 quake. Subsequent retrenching at the Museum and at the University prevented resumption of the project until 2020. By that time the Museum had embarked on a major project involving coins and medals, during which another 230 ancient coins were found in the storerooms. Phase 1 was completed during the 2020-2021 summer.

We are currently in the second phase, in which a research group of UC staff and undergraduate students is cataloguing and identifying the coins within the broader context of known coinage in the Graeco-Roman and Byzantine worlds. Beginning in 2022, Phase 3 will see the creation of research projects for academic staff and students in the BA(Hons) and MA.
As it happens, we are now resuming this work in conjunction with similar projects at the universities of Auckland and Otago, and Victoria University of Wellington. Representatives from each university presented our collective plans to an international audience at the Royal Numismatic Society of New Zealand in Wellington in October 2020, and we are continuing to work closely with the Society.

Who Is Involved

Canterbury Museum, Teece Museum, and the UC Department of Classics, plus representatives from the Departments of Classics at the universities of Auckland and Otago, and Victoria University of Wellington and the Otago Museum.

Why It Matters

This project will have at least two significant outcomes. The first is publication: the various regional museums and universities in New Zealand jointly own several thousand ancient coins, and these are largely unstudied, unpublished, and therefore unknown to the rest of the world. The second is insight into coins as a multi-faceted tool in the ancient Mediterranean world. Coins were used to pay for goods and services, but they were also important tools for promoting civic identity, establishing the legitimacy of rulers and would-be rulers, and generally promote the ideologies of those in power.

Learn More

• Steyn, D. (2013). Chasing the Sun: Using Coinage to Document the Spread of Solar Worship in the Roman Empire in the 3rd Century CE (MA thesis, University of Canterbury).
• Wilson, H., Parker, V., Minchin-Garvin, P., Elder, T. et al. (n.d.) Power and Profit: The Life and Coins of Alexander the Great www.canterbury.ac.nz/exhibition/alexander/