Résumé : « De tous les peuples de la Gaule, les Belges sont les plus braves » : Jules César occupe une place majeure et bien spécifique dans l’historiographie belge. En une phrase (dont on a généralement omis la suite : « parce qu’ils se tiennent le plus à l’écart de la civilisation »), César confère aux Belges leur nom tout en leur décernant un brevet de bravoure. Il en résulte une construction du personnage assez différente de celle pratiquée en France où, vainqueur de Vercingétorix promu depuis longtemps héros national, César ne s’éloigne jamais beaucoup de son statut de chef de guerre victorieux. On verra comment, de la récupération lors des deux grandes guerres aux bisbrouilles internes entre Flamands et Wallons, en passant par l’iconique Grand Jojo, l’image de Jules César a été instrumentalisée en Belgique.

The capture of the Achaemenid treasuries in 331–330 BCE by Alexander the Great in Persepolis and Susa marked the demise of the 300-year-old Persian Empire and the advent of Hellenistic kingdoms. Alexander seized the equivalent of about 5000 tons of silver, which represented the accumulated tributes paid by subjugated people from the Aegean Sea to the Indus to their Achaemenid rulers. Die studies show that this gigantic amount of silver, the so-called Persian mix, had been used to produce most of the coinage of Alexander the Great himself and to an even greater extent those of the Diadochi, his successors. What remains to be understood is the origin of the silver of this immense treasure. Lead isotope abundances determined on both Persian sigloi and alexanders struck from Achaemenid silver trace the bullion source to the southern Aegean, Macedonia, and Thrace. Lead in pseudo-coinage from early Indian kingdoms is isotopically different from the rest, which attests to a limited Indian contribution to the Achaemenid treasuries. Studies of Iron Age hoards from the Levant leave open the possibility that the making of the Persian mix may have predated the Achaemenid expansion of the seventh century BCE. We speculate on the motivations of such massive hoarding by the Persian kings and on its economic implications.

Coinage production of ancient powers such as Athens and Rome is usually inferred from die statistics of monetary issues. The present work applies a Kaplan-Meier analysis of resistance to failure to 29 sets of well-documented monetary issues. The failure rate function assumes a U-shaped form known in reliability engineering literature as the ‘bathtub curve’. With the geometric distribution of die failure being demonstrably violated for a large fraction of the data sets, the die distribution of each data set was instead fitted by a mixture of two Weibull distributions corresponding to two failure regimes. Dies can be divided into bad dies, failing early for various reasons, and good dies, failing late by fatigue. The dual populations reflect the efforts of the smiths at the time to produce bronze dies that would meet two conflicting needs: the reduction of premature die failure (= infant mortality) and the limitation of ductile deformation during minting. The variable proportions of the two populations suggest that not all workshops had fully mastered die technology. Because of the dichotomy induced by contrasting mechanical properties, corrections for missing dies based on singletons and causes of die failure must be carefully assessed for each data set.

An oil painting by Hendrik Vander Borght and dated 1650 displays an assemblage of Roman vases (6 in clay and 2 in glass) and 11 ancient coins (3 Greek, 3 Roman Republican and 5 Roman Imperial), depicted with an astonishing accuracy, allowing a precise identification for most of them. From an archaeological point of view, such a grouping of coins can only come from ancient Dacia. It is argued here that the painting is organized in order to display a political manifesto for the good ruler, strong, but not autocratic. It may refer to the general uncertainty felt soon after the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) which ended the Wars of Religion, but it may also be more precisely related to Transylvania at a time when the young and adventurous George II Rakoczi was recklessly preparing to invade Poland, after having succeeded in 1648 his father George I, whose reign was remembered as a golden age for Transylvania.

Monetary output of ancient powers such as Athens and Rome is usually inferred from die statistics of monetary issues and from mine production.More than 20 statistical methods have been proposed so far for this task, but we are here proposing a different approach based on a survival analysis of dies.The present work applies a Kaplan-Meier analysis of resistance to failure to 27 sets of well-documented monetary issues.The failure rate function assumes a U-shaped form known in reliability engineering literature as the 'bathtub curve'.With the geometric distribution of die failure being demonstrably violated for a large fraction of the data sets, the die distribution of each data set was instead fitted by a mixture of two Weibull distributions corresponding to two failure regimes.Dies can be divided into bad dies, failing early for various reasons ('infant mortality'), and good dies, failing late by fatigue.The dual populations reflect the efforts of the blacksmiths at the time to produce bronze dies that would meet two conflicting needs: the reduction of infant mortality and the limitation of ductile deformation during minting.The variable proportions of the two populations suggest that not all workshops had fully mastered die technology with some visible evolution from the Greeks to the Romans.While the magic bronze composition, corresponding to a Cu-Sn peritectic composition with 22% Sn, clearly was known to ancient metallurgists around the Mediterranean, how well tempering, which would have strongly affected die lifetimes by allowing controlled spinodal decomposition, was understood is uncertain but was a critical factor of mint productivity.Because of the dichotomy induced by contrasting mechanical properties, corrections for missing dies based on singletons and causes of die failure must be carefully assessed for each data set.

The conventional approach to ore provenance studies of ancient silver coins and artifacts has been to first analyze and then try to match them to published data about mining districts, a difficult task given our incomplete knowledge of these. While literary sources are useful to identify possible provenances, they potentially bias interpretations proper because of a variety of limitations of their time. Archeological evidence in the form of mining shafts, galleries, spoil heaps, and tools also provides a tangible and reliable record of mining, but dating such activity can be problematic and the record is inconsistent. Here we propose a new approach driven by Pb isotopic data rather than numismatic groups. Statistical analysis of Pb isotopic data is used to identify ore-defined isotopic clusters. This new method is based on an algorithm that predicts the number of isotopic clusters necessary to fulfill the simple condition that variance within isotopic clusters is minimized whereas inter-cluster variance is maximized. Since each cluster reflects a discrete geological episode within a particular environment broadly datable to a specific Pb model age, it can be identified as a potential source exploited by ancient miners. We explore the potential of this method in two examples using data from coins and ores respectively. In the first example, Roman Republican silver coins form three 'end-member' clusters sourced in mining districts with Cenozoic, Mesozoic, and Paleozoic Pb model ages. The example demonstrates how sources of silver used to mint coinage of the Roman Republic shifted within 50 years of the end of the Second Punic War in 201 BCE. In the second example using Aegean galena samples, Pb isotopes distinguish components with model ages datable to the Hercynian basement, the recent Aegean tectonic province, and Cyprus, noting that significant silver mining districts may remain unidentified in either Spain or the Aegean world. We further clarify a number of potential analytical issues and advocate that users of Pb isotopes for tracing archeological artifacts measure all four lead isotopes and inspect the 12 proposed isotope combinations in order to select those that provide the best representation of the data. We also emphasize that full advantage should be taken of the geologically informed parameters (model age and Th/U/Pb relationships) to identify the geological context of metal sources.

Woytek et moi-même, ainsi que Michael Alram et Bernhard Weisser qui nous ont rejoints presque immédiatement.Nous avons alors procédé à un double constat commun : d'abord, celui d'un intérêt général toujours grandissant pour l'historiographie et l'antiquarianisme, ensuite et surtout, celui d'une prise de conscience que, jusqu'ici, les études numismatiques de ce type se sont presqu'exclusivement fondées sur les ouvrages imprimés, lesquels -aussi nombreux soient-ils (voir à ce sujet les impressionnants catalogues établis par Yvette et Christian Dekesel) -ne forment que la pointe de l'iceberg.Au-delà des livres imprimés, qui ont fondamentalement façonné le développement de nos connaissances, il existe d'autres types de sources, généralement ignorées par ceux qui ont tenté d'écrire l'histoire de la numismatique antique.Or celles-ci sont absolument nécessaires si l'on veut approcher ce qu'on appelait alors la République des médailles.Les archives sont pleines de manuscrits qui n'ont jamais été publiés, en particulier ceux qui étaient trop techniques ou trop coûteux pour être imprimés.Les bibliothèques possèdent de nombreux exemplaires de livres richement annotés par des érudits célèbres.Ainsi, possédons-nous de nombreux exemplaires

Georges Le Rider a deja eu l’occasion de presenter un portrait officiel d’Henri Seyrig, au lendemain de son deces. A l’instigation des organisateurs de ce colloque qui est consacre aujourd’hui a Henri Seyrig, j’ai demande a Georges Le Rider de me livrer des considerations plus personnelles. Il a en effet beaucoup frequente Henri Seyrig, dont on peut dire qu’il a ete le fils spirituel, en quelque sorte, dans le domaine de la numismatique. Une grande amitie s’etait etablie entre eux. La premier...

Cette étude porte sur la structure et le contexte artistique du tableau peint en 1880 par Vincenzo Capobianchi : Il venditore d'antichità. Elle se penche d'abord sur l'auteur qui commença sa carrière comme peintre avant de se centrer sur le commerce de l'art et la numismatique. Elle examine ensuite les « marchands d'antiquités » comme un sous-genre de la peinture néo-pompéienne, avant d'identifier l'extraordinaire assemblage de chefs-d'œuvre ici rassemblés par Capobianchi. Il venditore d'antichità apparaît à la fois comme unique et emblématique. Au-delà de l'attrait immédiat provoqué par cette charmante scène de rue, peinte avec une technique quasi-photographique (de la qualité des artistes les plus reconnus de l'époque tels Alma-Tadema et Siemiradzky), ce tableau résonne comme une forte dénonciation sociale d'un Empire romain prédateur, une image seyante et anticipée du débat contemporain sur le centre et la périphérie.

Cette étude considère les travaux de Georges Le Rider sous plusieurs angles. Un modèle de clarté et de prudence, Georges Le Rider aura beaucoup plus publié sur les monnaies grecques que les collègues de sa génération, alors même que son mandat d’administrateur de la Bibliothèque nationale (1975-1981) réduisit fortement un temps sa productivité. On est aussi frappé par la cohérence d’une oeuvre qui n’a cessé de se développer, passant de la publication de documents (pièces rares ou trésors) aux larges thèmes d’histoire monétaire et financière, pour culminer dans une ambitieuse trilogie qui dresse le panorama sinon complet du moins le plus large qui soit du phénomène monétaire en Grèce ancienne. Par delà son insistance sur le profit comme moteur des frappes, Georges Le Rider offre toujours un exemple maximal de probité intellectuelle.

Programme de l’année 2014-2015 : I. Recherches en cours. — II. Monnayages antiques et réception antiquaire (XVIe-XVIIIe s.).