Report
on Joint Summer Meeting 2015
On
the 11th
of July the Joint meeting of the Royal and British Numismatic
Societies was hosted by the Yorkshire Numismatic Societies in the
Yorkshire Museum. The day was loosely focused on hoarding with a
chronological range which spanned the Iron Age to the
Seventeenth-century. Eight papers were delivered by speakers ranging
from young scholars to established authorities. The day was attended
by 42 people who were situated within the Yorkshire Museum’s
historic library.
The
event was started with a brief welcome by Andrew Woods, introducing
attendees to the Museum and the Historic library in which they were
sitting. Andrew Burnett (President, RNS) formally began proceedings
with a welcome on behalf of the Royal Numismatic Society and chairing
the first session.
The
first session considered hoarding in the Iron Age and Roman periods
with Philip de Jersey (Guernsey
Museum & Art
Gallery) and Eleanor
Ghey (British Museum) tackling each respectively. Drawing upon his
recently published book, Philip focused on Northern hoards, beginning
by highlighting the relative paucity in the north when compared to
southern England. He was able to highlight chronological variability
and some geographic anomalies, for example hoards are preferentially
buried on eastern slopes. Eleanor summarised the aims and initial
results of her on-going hoarding project, drawing together a colossal
volume of data and trying to make sense of it. Amongst a number of
insights was a comparison between hoards and single-finds of coins
which shows that some of the unusually large numbers of roman hoards
from the third century can be partially explained by the vast
quantities of coinage circulating at that time.
The
second session shifted the focus to the Early Medieval period with
Tony Abramson (University of York and President, YNS) considering the
use of Anglian coinage in Northumbria. Marshalling a huge dataset, he
was able to highlight some quite stark differences in the use of
coinage within an early medieval kingdom, with certain parts of
Northumbria showing earlier and more concentrated use of coinage.
Andrew Woods (York Museums Trust) discussed the Vale of York viking
hoard, recently returned to the Yorkshire Museum. He gave preliminary
results of a die-study and argued for the peaceful accumulation of
much of the hoard, trade rather than raid.
Following
an excellent lunch, sponsored by the Yorkshire Numismatic Society,
attention turned to the medieval and early modern periods. Carl
Savage reinterpreted the hoard from Bootham School in York. He was
able to compare the coins in the hoard to other medieval hoards,
arguing for it being a savings hoard but otherwise reflecting
contemporary circulating currency. Barrie Cook (British Museum)
considered the imagery of Stuart coins, highlighting the complex
visual messages that coinage could convey. It represented something a
King, or Queen, could directly influence something which was not lost
on Stuart monarchs. He was able to show how monarchs manipulated the
imagery on the coins for propagandist purposes, including James I
modelling himself as warrior king in contrast to his predecessor
Elizabeth.
The
final session of the day explored biographies of coinage across
periods, what other things can be done to them. Rachel Cubitt (York
Archaeological Trust) considered the hoard from Warlaby, North Yorks.
She introduced the archaeological context of the tenth-century hoard,
examined the types contained and also the secondary treatment of the
hoards. She was able to highlight the absence of viking issues in the
hoard and the potential that the coins had been bent to test their
purity. Matthew Ball (Harris Museum) considered the ‘Fleetwood’
hoard which contained hundreds of siliquae which had been identically
scratched. He ruled out testing of the type common to the viking age,
preferring an explanation based upon varying weight standards in the
post-roman world.
Martin
Allen (Fitzwilliam Museum and Editor, BNJ) closed the day, drawing
some thoughts together and thanking the speakers and the various
societies for their support. The day proved a success much of which
is due to an excellent set of speakers as well as an engaged and
knowledgeable audience who kept the speakers on their toes with some
tricky queries.
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