NUMISMATICS (from the Latin numisma, a coin) is the study of coins and medals. Coins were first issued in east and west in the eighth century B.C., and since then their use has spread over the whole civilised world. Unlike many objects in every-day use, they have always been highly prized by their owners, and were therefore frequently hoarded. As is still the custom in the east, it was usual to bury treasure for safety, with the result that the contents of such ancient and mediaeval savings banks are frequently turned up by the spade to-day. Coins are themselves the most imperishable of antiquities. The result is that they still exist in vast numbers of forgotten generations out of all proportion to other remains of the culture with which they were contemporary. The study of coins may therefore be expected to yield a considerable amount of information about the past, although we must be careful not to exaggerate their importance. Coins give us some idea of the wealth and importance of ancient states and cities. A study of the find-spots of coins gives an idea of their circulation in ancient times, and it is sometimes possible to make deductions about the extent of the dominion of a par ticular state from this; chronological analyses of finds, by reason ing from known dates to pieces of which the dates are hitherto unknown, has often given valuable results. The argument from find-spots has to be used with care, as commercial reasons fre quently explain the finding of coins far from their original mints. Thus, the frequent finds of Roman gold of the early empire in India do not show that the Romans ruled there, but corroborate Pliny's reference to the tremendous drain on Rome for gold to pay for Indian luxuries; to go to the other end of the world, the huge finds of Arab silver coins in Scandinavia were brought there to pay for furs for the wealthy Abbasids and Samanids. At all times certain currencies have acquired especial popularity and have wandered far ; such were in ancient times the tetradrachms of Athens and the staters of Philip II. ; in mediaeval times, the dinars of the early caliphs and the ducats of Venice, and in modern times the Mexican and Maria Theresa dollar and the English sovereign.
Commercial and economic history can thus learn much from coins ; their depreciation reveals times of economic stress ; the base Roman antoniniani of the third century tell their tale as readily as the inflated paper currency of Germany in 1919. The imitation of the Edward I. penny on the Continent shows how welcome a really good coin was in those days of base deniers.
Coins and medals have preserved a series of portraits which throw light on the characters of their issuers. Of particular value
is the light thrown by coins on ancient religion and mythology.
As datable objects they are above all valuable as the grammar of art. Not only do they throw light on local forgotten schools and preserve representations of long-lost masterpieces, but it is from them that the chronology of ancient art has been fixed. A long series of coins of a Greek town, ranging from the archaic period to the decline of art, sets a standard of comparison which enables sculpture and other objects to be dated.
The principal metals in which coins are struck are electrum, gold, silver, copper and bronze.
Electrum is a natural mixture of gold and silver which was used for the earliest Greek coins struck in Asia Minor (Lydia) until Croesus replaced it by pure gold. Electrum was the metal of the great 5th century coinage of Cyzicus. An artificial electrum was used in the 5th and 4th centuries in Carthage and Sicily.
Gold was the great currency of Asia, of the later Lydian kings, of the Achaemenids, of the Kushans and most Indian dynasties till the I2th, and again in the 17th century. In Europe it is not found till the great coinages of Philip II., Alexander III. and Lysimachus of Macedon ; in Europe we find it in the Roman and Byzantine empires and their successors till the 8th century; it was revived in the 12th century with the great commercial currencies of the Italian republics and from the middle of the 14th century became the standard of the northern countries of Europe also.
In the ancient world silver was the currency of early Greece and of Republican Rome, and of the 9th to the 14th century in Europe generally; it was the currency of the Parthians, and on the whole of the Sassanians, and of the Asiatic state of the middle ages.
Bronze or copper was the early currency of Rome and Northern Italy and of China till modern times: it first appears in Greece towards the end of the fifth century, and here as usual in its later numismatic history throughout the world was used only for small change.
Lead has only been occasionally used for coins ; the only lead currencies of any note are that of the Andhras of ancient India and the modern coinages of the Malay States. Iron was occasion ally used in the ancient world and during the World War in Ger many. Nickel was used in Bactria, 3rd century B.C., and has been extensively used in modern currencies since the middle of the nineteenth century. The only pre-war aluminium coinage was that for British East Africa in 1908, but it was not a success. Aluminium and aluminium-bronze have recently been used for a number of the post-war currencies of modern Europe.