文档介绍：Hill, (Sir) e Francis
The ancient coinage of
southern Arabia
THE BRITISH ACADEMY
e Ancient Coinage of
Southern Arabia
G. F. Hill
om the Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol. VII}
London
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Published for the British Academy jL
Oxford Press .
By Humphrey Milford, University Q,
*
Amen Corner, .
Price Two
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THE ANCIENT COINAGE OF SOUTHERN
ARABIA
BY G. F. HILL
Read May 5, 1915
THE ancient coinage of Southern Arabia is one of the most obscure
of numismatics. it is in
branches In origin Greek ; but development
it is Semitic. For the proper study of it a numismatist who is
equally well equipped on the Greek and Semitic sides is required;
and such a scholar has yet to be discovered. What is more, the
study of South Arabian epigraphy is at present in a somewhat
vast of have
inchoate stage ; quantities inscriptions been discovered,
but only partly published; an extraordinarily bitter personal feud,
with wide ramifications, has done anything but quicken progress;
and of the scholars who have devoted themselves to this branch of
archaeology, only one, Mordtmann, has paid serious attention to the
coins. In fact, the divorce between numismatics and archaeology
is as painfully evident here as in any other place. That must be the
excuse for me, as a numismatist with hardly the most rudimentary
Semitic if I venture to with wish
equipment, deal the subject ; my
is merely to put the numismatic material together in a form in which
Semitic scholars may be able to deal with it effectively.
1
According to Strabo, whose information is based on Eratosthenes,
there were four leading tribes in occupation of Southern Arabia, or
rather of that portion which may be described as lying over against
Aethiopia. First there are the Minaeans, in the part near the Red
with their chief town or the
Sea, Kama Karnana ; adjoining them,
Sabaeans, with their metropolis Mariaba; third, the Katabanians,
who extend to