The Beginning of Coinage:
New Discoveries and Research on Early Electrum Coinage

On 15-16 November 2013 a symposium on early electrum coinage will be held at ANS headquarters at 75 Varick Street, floor 11, New York NY 10013.

There are 35 spaces available for this event, and early booking is recommended.

Hotel room-blocks for participants are available at the nearby Hampton Inn Manhattan-Soho and the Washington Square Hotel. However, both hotels have cut-off dates. For the Washington Square Hotel, rooms must be booked by 11 September 2013 and for the Hampton Inn Manhattan-Soho, rooms must be booked by 14 October 2013.

Questions or to make payment arrangement via telephone call Membership at 212-571-4470 ext. 117. Email inquiries to membership@numismatics.org

This symposium offers members and others interested in early electrum coinage to learn more about new discoveries in the field that shed light on a variety of questions surrounding the coins. For example: What are they made of, and how? When were they made, and why? What can they tell us about the economy and society of the people who produced them?

Papers by international experts in the field will cover a variety of aspects. These will include a discussion by the excavator of the Archaic Artemisium at Ephesus of the archaeological finds and their impact on the dating of electrum coinage; a presentation on the chemical analysis of over 100 coins from the cabinet of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and the American Numismatic Society. These analyses, carried out at Centre Ernest-Babelon in Orléans and at the Field Museum in Chicago using microsampling by laser ablation, have enabled us to see more accurately than ever before the composition of the first coins. T

he question of why, how and when electrum was used for the first known coins will be at the center of the discussion by a series of eminent historians economists and numismatists. The symposium will conclude with discussion to which all attendees are invited to contribute.

The symposium will be accompanied by a display of electrum coins from the ANS cabinet. Coins from the ANS collection will also be available for examination.

For more information, see:The Beginning of Coinage(numismatics.org/NewsEvents/Electrum)