Wealth and Warfare: The Archaeology of Money in Ancient Syria
(Numismatic Studies 34)
by Frédérique Duyrat

List price: $200 plus shipping & handling
Member price: $140 plus shipping & handling
ISSN 0517-404-x
ISBN 978-0-89722-346-1
Hardcover, 550 text pages with tables, b/w figures

This book assembles for the first time the evidence for coin finds in the region of ancient Syria from the 5th to the 1st century BCE. A full catalogue of all known coin hoards and published excavation finds serves as the basis for an explanation of monetary behavior in an area extending over parts of modern Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Palestine, and Turkey. In seven chapters of analysis, the author seeks to establish the limits of what we can learn from coin circulation, to compare the data from commerce to the data from legal excavations, to try to understand the chronological evolution of coin circulation and how much political events or warfare affect it, and to evaluate what coin finds tell us of the wealth and poverty of the people who assembled them. One chapter is devoted to how the contemporary history of the countries within the scope of this study has influenced the documentation. This book determines more precisely than ever what circulated in the ancient Near East and can provide the patterns by which to evaluate the loss suffered by the cultural heritage of this region.

Frédérique Duyrat is director of the Department of Coins, Medals, and Antiques of the Bibliothèque nationale de France and is associated with the research team Orient et Méditerranée-Mondes sémitiques (University of Paris-Sorbonne) and the Ecole doctorale Archéologie of the University of Paris I-Panthéon Sorbonne. Prior to this she spent two years as a researcher at the Institut français d'archéologie du Proche-Orient in Damascus, eight years as assistant professor of Greek history at the University of Orléans, and three years as Curator of Greek coins at the Bibliothèque nationale de France. She is editor of Trésors Monétaires, a director of the Revue Numismatique, and a member of the board of the Société française de numismatique. She has written and edited more than 50 books and articles on the coinage, history, and archaeology of ancient Syria and Phoenicia.

Expected to ship in October 2016.

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Wealth and Warfare: The Archaeology of Money in Ancient Syria (http://numismatics.org/store/duyrat/)