Crisis? What crisis? Recycling of silver for Roman Republican coinage
Dated measurements of lead pollution in deep Greenland ice have become a useful proxy to monitor historical events because interruptions in lead-silver production result in fluctuations in lead emissions. However, the application of the lead emission record has not perhaps received the attention it...
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Springer Science and Business Media LLC
2023
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Online Access: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10176867/1/Wood_Ponting_Butcher_Crisis_2023.pdf https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10176867/ |
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ftucl:oai:eprints.ucl.ac.uk.OAI2:10176867 2023-12-24T10:17:07+01:00 Crisis? What crisis? Recycling of silver for Roman Republican coinage Wood, Jonathan R Ponting, Matthew Butcher, Kevin 2023-10 text https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10176867/1/Wood_Ponting_Butcher_Crisis_2023.pdf https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10176867/ eng eng Springer Science and Business Media LLC https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10176867/1/Wood_Ponting_Butcher_Crisis_2023.pdf https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10176867/ open Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences , 15 (10) , Article 147. (2023) Article 2023 ftucl 2023-11-27T13:07:35Z Dated measurements of lead pollution in deep Greenland ice have become a useful proxy to monitor historical events because interruptions in lead-silver production result in fluctuations in lead emissions. However, the application of the lead emission record has not perhaps received the attention it deserves because of the difficulty in connecting macroscale events, such as wars and plagues, to their economic repercussions. For instance, although debasement of silver coinage with copper has been proposed as a reasonable response to interruptions in silver production, reductions in fineness of the silver denarius, the backbone of Roman coinage from the late third century BC, are not always coincident with decreases in lead deposited in Greenland. We propose that extensive recycling of silver that is evident in the numismatic record can better explain drops in lead emissions and, thereby, the responses to major historical events, such as warfare in the silver-producing areas of the Iberian Peninsula and southern France during the middle and late Roman Republic. Article in Journal/Newspaper Greenland University College London: UCL Discovery Greenland |
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University College London: UCL Discovery |
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ftucl |
language |
English |
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Dated measurements of lead pollution in deep Greenland ice have become a useful proxy to monitor historical events because interruptions in lead-silver production result in fluctuations in lead emissions. However, the application of the lead emission record has not perhaps received the attention it deserves because of the difficulty in connecting macroscale events, such as wars and plagues, to their economic repercussions. For instance, although debasement of silver coinage with copper has been proposed as a reasonable response to interruptions in silver production, reductions in fineness of the silver denarius, the backbone of Roman coinage from the late third century BC, are not always coincident with decreases in lead deposited in Greenland. We propose that extensive recycling of silver that is evident in the numismatic record can better explain drops in lead emissions and, thereby, the responses to major historical events, such as warfare in the silver-producing areas of the Iberian Peninsula and southern France during the middle and late Roman Republic. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Wood, Jonathan R Ponting, Matthew Butcher, Kevin |
spellingShingle |
Wood, Jonathan R Ponting, Matthew Butcher, Kevin Crisis? What crisis? Recycling of silver for Roman Republican coinage |
author_facet |
Wood, Jonathan R Ponting, Matthew Butcher, Kevin |
author_sort |
Wood, Jonathan R |
title |
Crisis? What crisis? Recycling of silver for Roman Republican coinage |
title_short |
Crisis? What crisis? Recycling of silver for Roman Republican coinage |
title_full |
Crisis? What crisis? Recycling of silver for Roman Republican coinage |
title_fullStr |
Crisis? What crisis? Recycling of silver for Roman Republican coinage |
title_full_unstemmed |
Crisis? What crisis? Recycling of silver for Roman Republican coinage |
title_sort |
crisis? what crisis? recycling of silver for roman republican coinage |
publisher |
Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10176867/1/Wood_Ponting_Butcher_Crisis_2023.pdf https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10176867/ |
geographic |
Greenland |
geographic_facet |
Greenland |
genre |
Greenland |
genre_facet |
Greenland |
op_source |
Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences , 15 (10) , Article 147. (2023) |
op_relation |
https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10176867/1/Wood_Ponting_Butcher_Crisis_2023.pdf https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10176867/ |
op_rights |
open |
_version_ |
1786205040697933824 |