Resources and the Roman Imperial economy: The metallurgy of the denarius as a source of information on the exploitation of natural resources and the political and economic context

资源与罗马帝国经济：第纳尔的冶金学作为自然资源开发以及政治和经济背景的信息来源

• 批准号: 409029802
• 负责人: Professorin Dr. Sabine Klein
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Römisch-Germanische Kommission (RGK) Frankfurt a.M.
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2017-12-31 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/409029802?language=en
• 关键词: Resources; Roman; Imperial; economy; metallurgy

300 years after the coin reform of Augustus, the coinage system of the Early and Middle Empire had collapsed. The production of bronze denominations had been virtually suspended, the silver content of the denarius sunk to less than 1%. What were the reasons for this catastrophic development?This application is intended to secure the necessary funding for the laboratory work for a separately financed doctoral dissertation on the fineness and origin of the metal employed for Roman denarii from the 1st to the mid-3rd century AD. Following ground-breaking work by L. Cope and D. Walker in the 1970s on the metallurgy of the Roman Imperial silver coinage, recent and extensive work by K. Butcher and M. Ponting has confirmed the general phenomena previously observed, but provided a more detailed, and in some cases revised picture. However, many questions remain unaddressed and unanswered; there are significant gaps in the coverage of the coinage by Butcher and Ponting, in particular for the Julio-Claudian period prior to the reform of Nero; and since Butcher and Ponting concentrated on chemical fingerprinting of the coins, only a limited number of lead isotope analyses were carried out, which are important for provenancing the metal sources employed.These points are to be directly addressed in the doctoral dissertation. The data from the analyses will provide new information on the exploitation of natural resources by the Imperial administration, and the geographical, political and technological constraints to which it was subject. This information will be placed in a broader political and economic context in order to further our understanding of the aims and reasons behind the debasement of the denarius, in particular of episodes such as the short-lived reform of Domitian or the debasement of Septimius Severus; of the extent to which old coinage was recycled; as well as of Imperial financial and economic policy, its possibilities and limits in general.The project will also investigate whether existing analytical methods such as lead isotopes can be employed in the analysis of the silver coinage of the 3rd century in order to source the material used, when the level of silver in the coinage had sunk so significantly.The main method to be employed is lead isotope analysis, supplemented by chemical fingerprinting, but also by less frequently used isotopic analyses such as iron and copper. The coins for analysis will be carefully chosen to complement previous studies such as those of K. Butcher and M. Ponting, to verify their results and, above all, to fill individual gaps in their data series, and to address new questions their work pose.

在奥古斯都钱币改革300年后，帝国早期和中期的钱币制度已经崩溃。青铜面额货币的生产实际上已经停止，第纳尔的银含量降到了1%以下。造成这种灾难性发展的原因是什么？本申请旨在为单独资助的博士论文的实验室工作获得必要的资金，该论文涉及公元1世纪至3世纪中期罗马德纳里所用金属的纯度和来源。在L.科普和D.步行者在20世纪70年代对罗马帝国银铜的冶金，最近和广泛的工作K。布彻和M.庞廷证实了以前观察到的一般现象，但提供了一个更详细的，在某些情况下修订的图片。然而，许多问题仍然没有得到解决和回答;在布彻和庞廷对古罗马的报道中存在重大空白，特别是在尼禄改革之前的朱利奥-克劳狄时期;由于Butcher和Ponting专注于硬币的化学指纹，因此只进行了有限数量的铅同位素分析，这对所用金属源的来源很重要。这些观点将在博士论文中直接讨论。这些分析数据将提供有关帝国政府开发自然资源的新信息，以及它所受到的地理、政治和技术限制。这些信息将被置于更广泛的政治和经济背景下，以便进一步了解第纳尔贬值背后的目的和原因，特别是诸如图密善短暂的改革或塞普蒂米乌斯·塞维鲁的贬值等事件;旧硬币被回收的程度;以及帝国的财政和经济政策，该项目还将调查现有的分析方法，如铅同位素，是否可以用于分析银在世纪，当钴中的银含量显著下降时，为了寻找所用材料的来源，使用的主要方法是铅同位素分析，辅以化学指纹，但也有不太常用的同位素分析，如铁和铜。用于分析的硬币将被精心挑选，以补充以前的研究，如K。布彻和M.进行调查，以验证他们的结果，最重要的是，填补他们的数据系列中的个别空白，并解决他们的工作提出的新问题。