The kothon

Re-reading, for the first time in years, through my copy of Courtesans and Fishcakes, the Consuming Passions of Classical Athens (James Davidson, 1997) I encountered a form of classical Greek pottery cup, the kothon, that I was familiar with.

I've had a large fragment of the Greek, black glazed, ribbed drinking cup on my fireplace mantel shelf for years but had not remembered the references in the Davidson book to the colour and form.

The ribbed cup is of Spartan origin and, according to Critias of Athens, is an appropriate cup to carry on military service. It is compact and easily transported in a kit bag, the black colour means that unclean water encountered cannot be easily seen, and, finally, the cup's ribbed body form retains impurities. Despite the written benefits of the kothon for drinking less than clean waters it retained notoriety as being the form of vessel for drinking deep and over indulging in wine promoting drunkenness. 

Roman shipping tesserae from Ostia

 

My new ship tessera, Stannard 10.1

About twenty years ago I encountered my first two ship tesserae from Ostia in CNG sale 53, lots 1434-5. Shortly after that I acquired an example and, much to my later regret, sold it on. I have now had the pleasure of acquiring a new example, listed in the auction catalogue as being ex Italo Vecchi collection (although it may just be ex Italo Vecchi Ltd Nummorum Auctiones 15 (1999) sale ).

Looking through Neville Stannard's 2015 paper in Numismatic Chronicle, where he shows all the examples that he is aware of, my new specimen, Stannard 10.1, looks to be from the same die as the specimen that I had before, Stannard 10.5.

My original tessera, Stannard 10.5

Not only that it appears to be one of the ship tesserae that was illustrated in Ladich's Cronaca Numismatica paper (from 2006, not 2008 as stated in the Stannard paper?).

Ladich's illustrations, note the second one down, "NPV" in error

The earliest coins of the Nabateans

I have recently been cultivating an interest in the coinage of Nabataea, centred on Petra and covering parts of North Arabia, the Transjordan and Syria.

The earliest coins ascribed to Nabataea have no real identifying legend but the association is down to the provenance, the area in which they are found and the coins they are found with. 

It was only by chance that I was reading a note by Rachel Barkay in the 2015 volume of the journal Aram that it was pointed out that the earliest Nabataean coins imitate, in bronze, the gold staters of Macedon struck by Alexander the Great and Philip III featuring the helmeted head of Athena on the obverse and Nike on the reverse. 

A coin of the Mamluk Sultans finally identified

Patience had finally paid off. Sitting in the garden with a cold cider on the hottest day of the year I think that after over 30 years I have identified this coin.

I knew it was Mamluk but I just couldn't get it. In one final attempt with Balog, Coins of the Mamluk Sultans, I have it. Al Nasir Muhammad, 709-41AH (1310-41AD) copper fulus,  third reign , Cairo mint, Balog 221.

The last "supermoon" of 2020

Finally got around to downloading this image of the Moon, taken by me on 6th May 2020. It was a so-called a "supermoon", the third and final one of 2020. The term supermoon is used to refer to a full Moon on its closest passage to the Earth, or at lest within 90% of its closest passage.

What this means is that this passage was within 224,429 miles (361,184 km)

Late Roman / early Byzantine weights

I first posted on the weighing of late Roman and early Byzantine coins in May 2018. This post is an update on my collection of weights from the period. The weights are either marked on nomismata (solidi), scripula grammata or ounces. The design either engraved or punched in , sometimes quite shallow and at times is enhanced by silver inlay.

There is overlap between commercial weights and the coin weights. Although I don't have an example there are some weights known marked with both the weight in solidi and ounces.

1 ounce = 6 solidi = 24 scripula

Machine Tokens update

I have now uploaded the full collection of around 330 pieces, mostly British, as a PDF that can either be viewed online or downloaded. I've tried to include as many Hayes references as possible.

Machine token collection

This collection started as the product of a mis-spent youth, venturing into paranumismatics! A work in progress during these times of curfew, keeping me well and for the best. I have started some Web pages with my collection of slot machine tokens.

https://machinetokens.blogspot.com/

Probably only 10% of the collection listed so far but I'm working on it. Would be happy to hear from other collectors of this series.