The role of revolutionizing the course of ancient 

 numismatics — opening new ways and pointing out 

 new perspectives in its research — fell to two men, 

 Friedrich Imhoof-Blumer in the Greek lield and 

 Theodor Monnnsen in the Roman. 



GREEK NUMISMATICS 



Imhoof-Blumer's name trails like a comet across the 

 field of Greek numismatics. Born at W'interthur, 

 Switzerland, in 1838 into a family of wealthy indus- 

 trialists, he decided in his midthirties to devote his 

 life to Greek numismatics.'"^ Seldom, if ever, has an 

 "amateur" — if this word could ever apply to Imhoof- 

 Blumer — attained such a level of pericction in his 

 research: seldom has a numismatist brought about 

 such significant innovations. The study of Greek 

 numismatics has always e.xertcd a strong attraction on 

 collectors because of the highly esthetic quality of 

 Greek coins and because of the intriguing fact that 

 these coins seldom bear more than the name of a city 

 or a ruler — thereby posing challenging problems of 

 identification. Imhoof-Bhuner started as a collector 

 of Greek coins, but very .soon he began to publish 

 his own observations as he discovered many entirely 

 unknown or erroneously attributed coins. A long 

 scries of articles and publications was the result, 

 of which Monnaies ffrecques (1883), Griechische Miinzen 

 (1890), and hleimsiatische Miinzen (1901-1902) are 

 major works. No problem seemed too difilcult for 

 him to solve. His inquisitive spirit and his critical 

 approach in using documentary and material evidence 

 make most of his publications models of research. 

 Sir George Macdonald rightly has called him // 

 maestro di color che sanno. 



Impressed by certain die similarities of some staters 

 in the Greek province of Acarnania — coins which 

 previously had been attributed to various cities on 

 the basis of the obverse monograms — Imhoof-Blumer 

 decided to assign them all to the same mint.'-' This 

 recognition of the existence of identical die.s — arising 

 from a comparative study of coins — and the resultant 

 identification of die-link sequences was a master 

 stroke which opened new perspectives for the entire 

 field of numismatics. This approach became a basic 

 method for establishing the relative chronology of 



Fig. 36. — Friedrich Imhoof-Blumer (1838- 

 1920), great Swiss collector and author in a 

 portrait by VVilhelm v. Kaulbach (photo 

 courtesy Mrs. L. Sulzcr-\Veber, VVinlcrthur, 

 Switzerland). 



undated series such as Greek coinages. Since 

 Winckelmann's time '-"■ stylistic considerations had 

 been a major clue in delineating the time factor, but, 

 as noted by Sir George Macdonald, ""classification by 

 style can hardly take us beyond a grouping into 

 periods, whereas die-study may carry us a stage 

 luriher and enalile us to determine sequences within 

 the periods with certainty and precision." '-'' 



Imhoof-Blumer's principles, employed by the Ger- 

 mans — as in Kurt Regling's monograph on the coins 

 of Terina (1906) — and by British scholars, found the 

 most brilliant api^lication, however, across the ocean 

 in America, where Iklward T. Newell, in 1912, 

 revolutionized the chronology and attributions of 

 certain coinages of .Mexander the Great. It is 



i^' For additional biographical and bibliographical data, sec 

 his obituary in R^vuf siiissr dr numismaliqtie (1920); also Engf.li, 

 i'rieJrich ImhimJ-Blimier (1924). 



'" Die Miinzni Akarnmiirns (1878). 



'" Sec C.\HN, ".Analyse et interpretation du style" (1953); 

 and especially the basic work of Rf.gling, Die antike Miinzf 

 ah h'tmslwerk (1924). 



126 "Fifty Years of Greek Numismatics," p. 14. 



42 



BULLETIN 229: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORV .\ND TECHNOLOGY 



