The Religious Theory for the Emergence of Greek Coins “A Study of the Theory and the Possibility of its Revival”

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Assistant Professor, Ancient European Civilization Department, faculty of Arts, Ain Shams University(Egypt)

Abstract

The Study of Greek coins was not limited on just tracing their history, classifications, descriptions, and devising multiple concepts through technical analysis of the obverse and reverse types, As, the causes of the emergence of coins has occupied a significant part of the researchers’ interest. Trading was the top cause for the emergenceof coins according to Carl Menger’s theory which appeared in 1871. This theory may be referred as “The trading theory for the emergence of coins”. The theory has been widely spread since its arousal until today to the extent that it can be argued that we can hardly read any other theory in the vast majority of the studies related to this domain. Although the German Bernard Laum had a different point of view in 1924 through what may be termed as: “Religious theory for the emergence of coins”, His theory was widely neglected, not because it was illogical, but because no one was interested in carefully testing the theory. One may assume that in 2004 Richard Seaford, was the first researcher to take studying the theory seriously. He presented a re-reading for it and tested the possibility of its revival and application.
Accordingly, the research aims through applying the analytical and comparative approaches to provide a thorough study of Laum’s theory. We aim at exploring the possibility of its revival the religious theory behind the emergence of coins and the probability of recommending its dominance over the trading theory.

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References

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