July 10, 2014 – On Friday the 16th of May 2014, the Fourth International Numismatic Conference of the Coin Cabinet of the Royal Library of Belgium was organised. This triennial conference, highly regarded in the numismatic world, aims to promote the study of coinage from a long-term historical perspective. Subject of this year’s conferences was the contrast between urban and rural contexts on the level of monetization from ancient Greece to the early Middle ages. The papers will subsequently be published in the Revue belge de Numismatique of 2015 (volume 161).
The attendees and lecturers were received in the recently renovated Royal Sky Room of the Royal Library of Belgium. Subsequently they were welcomed by the director of the heritage collections, Robert Nouwen, François de Callataÿ (Royal Library of Belgium, Université libre de Bruxelles, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris) and Johan van Heesch, head of the Coin Cabinet.
The first lecture of our conference was given by Catherine Grandjean (University of Tours). She presented a study about the monetization of ancient Greek cities.
The second speaker was François de Callataÿ, who examined the monetary sources in the New Attic Comedy.
Christian Lauwers, researcher at the Coin Cabinet, gave us an insight in the Celtic coin production in the oppida and in mobile workshops.
Philippa Walton, Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, discussed the monetization of Roman Britain.
Presentation of Fran Stroobants.
The afternoon session started with a conference of Fran Stroobants, researcher at the Coin Cabinet, about the coin use at Sagalassos (modern Turkey) and its territory.
The next speaker, Jean-Marc Doyen (Université de Lille 3, Université Libre de Bruxelles) presented a paper on coin circulation on rural settlements in Northern Gaul.
The next lecture by Jean-Pierre Devroey (Université Libre de Bruxelles), discussed the monetization during the Age of Carolingians.
Presentation of Alessia Rovelli.
Last speaker of the conference was Alessia Rovelli from the University of Tuscia, Italy, who gave a lecture on rural and urban contexts in Northern Italy in the early Middle Ages.
You can find the online catalogue of the coin cabinet here.
This is the website of the Royal Library of Belgium.