Roman Coin Circulation in Ancient Armenia

ended

This project intends to analyze Roman monetary circulation in the kingdom of Armenia from the Ist century BCE to the fall of the kingdom in 428 CE. Because of Armenia’s strategic location, several attempts were made to gain control of it, particularly by the Roman and Parthian/Sassanid empires, whose coinage found its way into Armenia. This project will study the evolution, the purpose and the impact of Roman coinage on the Armenian Kingdom. This project breaks away from Armenian studies, hitherto based solely on Greek and Roman textual sources, at a geographical and chronological level, as it focusses on concrete data from the Armenian Kingdom itself. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the project will improve our general understanding of Armenian and Roman history, but also clarify the regional history in the light of specific Armenian events, thanks to a new approach in the field of Armenian studies. Likewise, it will add new evidence to our knowledge of Roman coinage in the East. The preliminary data – a comprehensive coin corpus – has already been collected and catalogued. To successfully complete this project, I will join the numismatic team at Oxford University. This host institution is no doubt the ideal choice. Its eminent numismatists have worked on the provincial circulation of Roman imperial coinage, it houses both Armenian and Numismatics departments, and the Ashmolean Museum’s numismatic holdings at Oxford are of prime importance. This project requires good prior knowledge of the historical situation in Armenia as well as of the history and ambitions of the Roman, Parthian and Sassanid Empires. Numismatics in Armenia also needs to be grasped in all its diversity. For these reasons, it is necessary to master languages from the region, to be aware of past and current research and the many factors bearing on Armenian studies, such as Soviet ideology or nationalist issues. All these conditions are met here allowing this ground-breaking project to thrive.