Rob Tye: Articles
A yahoo group discussing historical weight standards, seignioarge and wider economic matters can be found at:
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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/numismet
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Reviews
von Reden - Money in Classical Antiquity, Sitta von Reden
Metrology
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Carats - The Supposed Use of Grains, and Seeds, in Historical Metrology (March 2010)
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Troy - A Short Histography of Troy Weight (April 2010)
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Dirhem Weight - Some comments on the modern confusions regarding the weight of the medieval dirhem
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Coins & Economic History
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Gyges Magic Ring The Origins of Coinages and Open Societies - Sketches the common intellectual backdrop to first coin use in Europe, India and China at the dawn of history. Draws primarily upon the insights of Karl Popper and Ibn Khaldun (Still in Print - £3/$5 including P&P)
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Wang Mang - Wang Many created the world's first modern state in China in 9 AD, funding it with a suite of fiduciary copper coins. He was maybe the first to abolish slavery, to introduce income tax, to experiment in manned flight & much much else. His reign closed in perhaps the bloodiest civil war ever fought. My booklet on Wang Mang has been out of print for about 5 years. Here is a revised version of the text. The account is followed by a review of other 20th century accounts of Mang's reign. (How did such prominent academics get things so wrong?)
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The Horseman Type on Medieval European Coinage - Idealised versions of Spartan & Cretan hierarchical political systems were used as templates for a proposed reactionary restructuring of society by Plato. Reactionary Roman politicians used hierarchical tribal German ideologies to much the same ends. Less well publicised is the way that, via Islam, ancient Scythian hierarchical idealised social systems were apparently implanted into the conceptual framework of medieval European elites. As usual, if we 'follow the money' the picture becomes much clearer. (the web version lacks the map, but it appears on p. 73 of Early World Coins)
The English Mint in the 18th Century - A New History of The Royal Mint, edited by Dr Challis, lays before us a history of the English mint from Anglo-Saxon times, in great detail, copiously annotated and backed up by scores of statistical tables. But what of the central issues, are they really addressed? In a work which even tells us who swept the floor of the 18th century Royal Mint, we cannot find an answer to the central question: Why was the mint not striking coins? (This review mysteriously failed to appear in a provincial UK numismatic journal some years back)
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Gesell - Outlines Gesell's notions of market economies without capitalism. Raises the possibility that medieval change-of-type mechanisms in Europe, Islam and Japan were launched to achieve similar ends as Gesell’s stamp money, but one thousand years earlier. (The policies of the Anglo-Saxon ruler Aethelred II (978-1014) which spread to Denmark, Bohemia, Poland, and then to certain German principalities and then perhaps to Byzantium and then perhaps on to a phase which had its roots in the policies of Persian Ilkhan Uljaitu, 1304-16)
Cold War Clientelism and Karl Popper - An attempt to plumb a typically profound and complex instance of academic clientelism. By 'academic clientelism' I mean the problem that professional academics inevitably find it very difficult indeed to pursue a blameless career, given the influence of wealthy external agencies over the hierarchically structured professional academic system
The War on Cash - Some thoughts on our current monetary predicament
Hoarding - Comments upon a Portable Antiquities Scheme/BM Conference: Hoarding and Deposition of Metalwork: A British Perspective 29th October 2011
The War on Cash.
.Period I PMC weights - the weights of a large collection of Ancient Hindu period I pmc's
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