Reference Books that I mainly use for coins of Elagabalus from Markianopolis and other provincial cities:
More used:
Varbanov, Ivan Greek Imperial Coins vol. I Dacia, Moesia Superior, Moesia Inferior. Bourgas, Bulgaria: Adicom Publications, 2005. This book was also written in Bulgarian originally, however this is an English translation. As a reference, I refer to it as Varbanov. www.varbanovbooks.com
Gospodin Jekov, Nina Hristova The coins of Moesia Inferior I-III c. A.C. Marcianopolis. Blagoevgrad: Southwestern University "N. Rilski" Press, 2006. This book is written in Bulgarian, however the forward is also in English and I found the numbering system fairly easy to figure out. Marcianopolis is located in modern day Bulgaria. As a reference I refer it as Jekov. The proper transliteration of his name from Bulgarian is Mr. Zhekov.
Pick and Regling, Die antiken Münzen Nord-Griechenlands, Bd. I: Dacien und Moesien. Berlin, 1898. Written in German, this is one of the most detailed and through studies. Referenced as AMNG I.
Moushmov, Nikola Ancient Coins of the Balkan Peninsula. 1912. Originally written in Bulgarian, it has been translated and placed online. Often abbreviated Moush. http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/moushmov/index.html
Sear, David R. Greek Imperial Coins and their Values. London: Seaby, 1982. 636 pages. This is a good book on Roman provincial coins, however due to the scope of the subject covering all rulers and provinces, only gives a an example or two per ruler, per city. Often abbreviated GIC. David R. Sear's books.
Cornell, Tim and Matthews, John Atlas of the Roman World (Cultural Atlas of) Checkmark Books, 1982. 240 pages. Good atlas/ reference book. It contains an index of the latitude and longitude of most of the Roman cities, including the provincial ones. Amazon link.
Butcher, Kevin Coinage in Roman Syria. London, 2004. Referenced as Butcher.
Various British Museum Catalogue of Greek Coins. (Cited as BMC.) London, 1873-. It is divided into 29 volumes by the different areas. Some of the plates can be found at snible.org
Lesser used:
Waddington, William Henry Recueil General Des Monnaies Grecques D'Asie Mineure Originally printed in four volumes. A 1976 reprint has all four volumes. Text is in French. It doesn't cover Markianopolis, however does cover many other areas of provincial coinage. Often abbreviated REC-GEN. I found a partial copy of the volume Bithynie published in 1908 on the Google Book Search site though some pages show up as not available. You can download it as a .pdf, but some pages are still missing, notably some of the plates. However it can give you an idea of the layout of the pages and plates.
Stout, Selatie Edgar The Govenors of Moesia. Princeton, 1911. A dissertation that I found online using the Google Book Search site.
Bellinger, Alfred R.: Troy, The Coins. New York, 1979. Referenced as Bellinger. I was provided a reference to this work by forumancientcoins
Another reference I'm interested in is by Michel and Karin Prieur, A Type of Corpus of the Syro-Phoenician Tetradrachms and their fractions.
Icks, Martijn.: The Crimes of Elagabalus: The Life and Legacy of Romes Decadent Boy Emperor. I.B.Tauris, 2013. Just to read. It was mentioned in several places. (amazon)
Other reference books that I use:.
More used:
Sear, David R. Roman Coins and Their Values Volumes I, II, and III. Spink & Son Ltd. 2000,2002,2005. These are a greatly expanded versions of his previous Roman Coins and Their Values. Volume IV is due out in 2007. Volume II covers (among others) Elagabalus. As a reference, it is often referred to as Sear or RCV, sometimes with brackets afterwards showing the year of publishing. David R. Sear's books.
The Roman Imperial Coinage. This ongoing work by many different authors has been released in 10 volumes, some of which have several sub volumes. The volumes are divided by rulers. RIC IV-b is the volume that Elagabalus is in. Even though the RIC it is not complete, and has some inaccuracies, it is considered the most complete work of Roman Imperial coinage. It does not cover any of the provinces, however.
Lesser used:
Carson, R.A.G., Hill, P.V. and Kent, J.P.C. Late Roman Bronze Coinage Rockville Centre, New York, Sanford J. Durst Numismatic Publications, 1978 & 1989. Referenced as LRBC. The LRBC covers the later bronze coinage from the Roman Empire.
Van Meter, David The Handbook of Roman Imperial COins A Complete Guide To The History, Types And Values Of Roman Imperial Coinage Utica, New York: Laurion Press, 1991. Referenced as VanMeter.
Plant, Richard Greek Coin Types and Their Identification Bloomsbury, London, Spink & Son Ltd, 1979
Sear, David R. Greek Coins and Their Values, Volume 1 Europe London, Seaby, 1978
Sear, David R. Greek Coins and Their Values, Volume 2 Asia and Africa London, Seaby, 1979
Cohen, Henry. Description Historique des monnaies frappees sous l'Empire Romain second edition. Paris: 1880-1892, Text is in French and has been placed online. As a reference, it is referred to as Cohen.
Levi, Peter. Atlas of the Greek World (Cultural Atlas of). Facts on File, 1981. 240 pages. Amazon link.
Klawans, Zander H. Handbook of Ancient Greek & Roman Coins Atlanta, GA, Whitman Publishing LLC, 2003 287 pages.
Brown, Augustus The Coinage of Elagabalus (AD 218 - 222) New York, Attic Books. 16 pages, 1 plate page.
Akerman, John Yonge Numismatic Illustrations of the New Testament Chicago, Argonaut, Inc., Publishers, MCMLXVI 1966
Keppie, Lawrence Understanding Roman Inscriptions Routledge, 1991 (Google book link).
References I use based on city:
Markianopolis (Marcianopolis), Moesia Inferior: Varbanov, Jekov, Moushmov, AMNG I, BMC III (Thrace), Sear-GIC
Nicopolis Ad Istrum, Moesia Inferior: Varbanov, Moushmov, AMNG I, BMC III (Thrace), Sear-GIC
Odessus, Moesia Inferior: Varbanov, Moushmov, BMC III (Thrace), Sear-GIC
Philippopolis, Thrace: Moushmov, BMC III (Thrace), Sear-GIC
Perinthos (Perinthus), Thrace: Moushmov, BMC III (Thrace), Sear-GIC
Nicaea, Bithynia: RecGen, Sear-GIC
Raphanea, Seleucis and Pieria, Syria: Butcher, Sear-GIC
Antioch (Antiochia ad Orontem), Seleucis and Piera, Syria: Butcher, Sear-GIC
Seleucia Pieria, Seleucis and Piera, Syria: Butcher, Sear-GIC
Thessalonika (Thessalonica), Macedonia: Moushmov, BMC V (Macedonia), Sear-GIC
Tyre, Phoenicia: BMC XXVI (Phoenicia), Sear-GIC
Counterfeits and Forgeries books:
Prokopov, Ilya, Kissyov, Kostadin, and Paunov, Eugeni Modern Counterfeits and Replicas of Ancient Greek and Roman Coins from Bulgaria Sofia, Bulgaria, Balkins Press Ltd. 2003 75 pages.
Prokopov, Illya Contemporary Coin Engravers and Coin Masters from Bulgaria "Lipanoff" Studio Sofia, Bulgaria, Balkins Press Ltd. 2004 88 pages.
Prokopov, Illya and Paunov, Eugeni Cast Forgeries of Classical Coins from Bulgaria Sofia, Bulgaria, Balkins Press Ltd. 2004 88 pages.
History or Historical books:
Grant, Michael The Severans The Changed Roman Empire. London and New York, Routledge, 1996 117 pages
Grant, Michael Constantine The Great The Man and His Times. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons 1993 267 pages
Grant, Michael The Twelve Caesars. New York, Barnes & Noble, Inc 1975 282 pages
Grant, Michael The Collapse and Recovery of the Roman Empire. London, Routledge 1999 121 pages
Grant, Michael Readings in the Classical Historians.. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons 1992 686 pages
Grant, Michael Myths of the Greeks and Romans New York Mentor Book 1962 432 pages
Grant, Michael The Army of the Caesars. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons 1974 365 pages
Burckhardt, Jacob The Age of Constantine the Great. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California, University of California Press 1949 400 pages
Bishop, Morris A Gallery of Eccentrics Or, A Set of Twelve Originals & Extravagants from ELAGABALUS, the Waggish Emperor to Mr. Professor Porson, teh Tippling Philologer. New York, Minton, Balch & Company 1928. 1928 Printing.
Petronius The Satyricon, The Wanton World of Nero's Rome Caught By The Satiric Genius of Its Most Cultured Cynic Newly Translated With An Introduction By the Brilliant Classical Scholar William Arrowsmith. New York, Mentor Books 1959
Dillaway, Charles K. Roman Antiquities and Ancient Mythology; For Classical Schools. Boston Lincoln, Edmands & Co, 1833. 1833 publishing
Plutarch Plutarch's Lives Translated from the original Greek with notes, critical and Historical: and A Life of Plutarch. New York Harper & Brothers 1841
Hamilton, Edith Mythology Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes. London, The New English Library Limited
Evans, Bergen Dictionary of Mythology Mainly Classical. New York, Dell Publishing Company, Inc. 1976
Duggan, Alfred Family Favorites A Novel of a Most Unusual, often Outrageous Emperor. New York, Pantheon Books Inc., 1960. Historical Fiction.
Online sites:
Top few that I use most often:
Wildwinds site. Very good site allowing you to browse by coin type or search by partial inscription (partial inscription search seems to be gone now). It also has a list of references that they use.
RPC site. They now have an advanced search that can help find Roman Provincial Coins by legend
Numismatics site. Very good site for coins that would be in the RIC (not provincial coins) with a really good search feature and many examples. They do take legend breaks into their search criteria. So if you know that it is a GLORIA EXERCITVS style reverse, if it breaks on GLOR - IA and you don't put it in that way, it won't pull up your coin. Takes a bit of figuring out and sometimes looking at the other way, but an extremely good database.
Forvm Ancient Coins site. A very good site. Includes help to identify coins, has discussion boards and many articles. A part of this site is the Roman Coin Attribution Toolkit which is a great help to identify and learn more about the coins. Another part is the Numiswiki page which is an online collection of numismatics and history references.
Vcoins site. It has coins for sale and will also allow you to browse through stores or search for coins.
Classical Numismatic Group's site. It will allow you to research coins that have been sold previously.
CoinArchives site. This site will also allow you to research sold coins and the prices realized. (note, they have free portion and a much larger paid portion)
Lesser used:
SNG UK site. This site will let you search (at this time) 25,000 coins in their online database.
Just started using. https://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/ Great collection of Roman Provincial Coins that are searchable. Link to their volume that contains Elagabalus. They currently have 935 Provincial coins of Elagabalus, 1562 coins of during the reign of Elagablus and 217 of Marcianopolis, in separate searches. They just appear to currently have non listed for Elagabalus from Marcianopolis yet. I'm still working on figuring out their search engine (also you can enter Greek letters in the search but not Latin ones and most of the legends that I look for are mixed).
Specific Reference Online Sites:
Following found on https://web.archive.org/web/20110721184930/http://dougsmith.ancients.info/ (original site gone, link through wayback machine)
Protecting yourself when purchasing Andrew McCabe (original site gone, link through wayback machine)
Grading of coins Wayne Sayles (original site gone, link through wayback machine)
Images and their meaning by Wayne Sayles, Part 2, Part 3 (original site gone, link through wayback machine)
Figuring out mints:
forumancientcoins mint marks page
premium-ancient-coins mint marks page
Greek Legends:
I was able to get Greek legends to show on this site now using the font generated from forumancientcoins.com
Rarity page
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