Cyrenaican Expeditions: Note

Extract

The reviewer of A. Rowe, ‘Cyrenaican Expeditions’ (JHS lxxxii 199–200), in commenting on the catalogue of the coins from the excavations, criticises, without grounds for so doing, the absence of illustrations and the fact that the short descriptions in the text closely follow Robinson, British Museum Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Cyrenaica (CGC) and Svoronos, Νομίσματα τοῦ κράτους τῶν Πτολεμαίων (SN).

The reviewer appears not to have read the footnotes (especially n. 4, p. 29) in which I clearly discuss the whole problem of recording the coins in question:

‘Many of the coins bearing these types are, as the present example, heavily corroded. Weights and sizes have therefore been omitted and the detail recorded comes from the composite evidence of other less damaged specimens (from CGC and SN). The same practice has been followed throughout wherever expedient. In view of the condition of the coins generally, references to standard catalogues are given instead of illustrations.’

The practice of referring to identical issues recorded in standard catalogues seemed to me preferable to the inclusion of a set of illustrations which no printer would have been eager to accept in view of the worn or damaged condition of many of the coins represented.