Writing on coins and history

[THCoins]

thanks Anthony, will try to find the monography by Cynthia Talbot to enhance my understanding on the topic;

on a lighter note, a large portion of the known history anywhere is based on conjecture
whatever one historian opines is usually negated by quite a few others & over a long period of time some semblance closer to truth is generally accepted upon
this series of coins is relatively young with reference to research input, as yet

so maybe my next generation will be able to put in a lot of correction to data in my personal collection catalog

Very much agree on written history being glued together by conjecture. What i have noted on medieval Indian coins however is that quite some modern references are still based on (often colonial) historians "best guesses" from the 19th century. Some of their erroneous propositions seem quite resistant to being updated in general literature. Even when they have been proven to be wrong by different scolars already a long time ago.
It is also not helpfull that there is a tendency for groups of people to promote a biassed view of history for conflicting political purposes  .

[Amit Kher]

wouldn't even comment on the political aspect Anthony; that part of the human society worldwide should rather be ignored by everyone 

on the "colonial influence" yes, it's a very sad state of affairs; the colonizers unfortunately have left behind deeply entrenched "superiority" influence and ppl in general wouldn't openly acknowledge something being incorrect even if they personally feel so

coming back to the topic in hand, have been pondering and will share some thoughts asap

[Figleaf]

Lets pull apart two groups: academics and numismatic authors.

The first group has boring footnotes and long lists of references. They write to be quoted. They dislike someone using large parts of their text, but the pictures are someone else's anyway.

The second group has pictures and sketches and "atmosphere illustrations" and perhaps not so pertinent but fun anecdotes. Their holy grail is everybody using THEIR catalogue numbers. They write to be sold. They dislike somebody using their pictures without permission but like it when THEIR insights are used.

I am exaggerating. The two groups overlap and the character of the author and the texts count. You got the picture, though. I acknowledge being firmly in the second group, but on economics, I am in the first group.

These two groups live in different systems.

The academic is precise. He does not speculate, but makes a hypothesis for discussion by other academics. Others will try to take the hypothesis apart. As long as they fail, the hypothesis is accepted as a basis for further research. If not, the academic who proposed the hypothesis withdraws it and is happy with attention he got.

The numismatic author makes "best guesses", because for eternal fame, he needs to be complete. Once the author is recognised as an expert, those best guesses will be truth until a new expert comes up with a whole new set of catalogue numbers. Non-experts need not apply. Occasional papers do not count.

Thumb sucker. Caesar wrote De Bello Gallico as a propaganda piece. A scientist might pen a book on "errors and misconceptions in De Bello Gallico". An author might call a book on the same subject: "The secret story of the Gauls".

Anecdote 1: I once did the chapters on Dutch colonial coins for the Krause and Mishler books. One day I noticed an article by the author known here as Oesho with a reinterpretation of the legend on a coin of Atjeh. With the next round of pricing, I corrected the text in KM. To make a long story short, my prices were always largely accepted, but it literally took three years of bureaucratic infighting to get the text change through.

Anecdote 2: on WoC, a design element was taken for a French heraldic lily. I wrote a post full of arguments why that couldn't be true and accused the author of THE book of being Europe-centred. It was rejected partly out of hand, partly because it wasn't what THE book said. I used a holiday visit in Uzbekistan to hunt for the design element, found it and reported in WoC that the element was a pomegranate: it was shrugged off. Only when my hypothesis was supported by aws22 the heckling stopped, but I can still feel resistance when bringing it up again (don't worry, I can take it; I have seen far worse).

The upshot. Don't blame academics for not changing their opinions. It's authors who can be seen as thoughtlessly copying. Don't blame them for their hypothesis-discussion method either. It has its drawbacks, but in general it works great. Do thank authors for pioneering and organising, but, if necessary, kick them for trying to be "complete" and for ignoring criticism.

Peter

[Amit Kher]

yes Peter you're correct, i strayed from the topic
pls accept my apologies

[Figleaf]

None needed, Amit. Off topic is fine on this site. When off topic and interesting, it's even welcome and solved with some thread splitting. I, at least, consider this new thread interesting and worthwhile and hope it'll get longer.

Have fun,

Peter

[Amit Kher]

None needed, Amit. Off topic is fine on this site. When off topic and interesting, it's even welcome and solved with some thread splitting. I, at least, consider this new thread interesting and worthwhile and hope it'll get longer.

Have fun,

Peter

this or the one where this originated Peter

[Figleaf]

Both, of course, Amit

Anyway, it's important that people know we care for content, not for needless rules.

Peter

[Amit Kher]

not much for me to say here for the time being but i'm surely pondering over the coin series and will likely come up with some thoughts