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Research guide

Greek Coin Weights, Standards, and Denominations

A guide to Hultsch, Head, Macdonald, Babelon, and catalogue evidence for Attic, Aeginetan, Euboic, Phoenician, and local Greek weight standards.

Use this path when weight, denomination, or standard is the central clue: Attic versus Aeginetan, drachm versus stater, local bronze denominations, or older metrological language in a catalogue. Hultsch is the nineteenth-century metrological base for Greek and Roman systems. Head’s guide and Historia Numorum are more immediately numismatic, tying standards to mints, regions, and historical periods.

Macdonald’s Cretan study is a useful focused example of how regional weight evidence can alter attribution and chronology. Babelon’s theoretical volume helps when the terminology comes from French scholarship or when the question concerns broader ancient monetary systems rather than one coin.

Recommended Works

  1. 1
    Greek and Roman Metrology cover
    Greek and Roman Metrology Friedrich Hultsch · 1862 · German · Handbook / Manual Hultsch synthesizes literary, epigraphic, weight, and coin evidence to reconstruct Greek and Roman standards, denominations, and systems of account. The work is useful for understanding... Hultsch
  2. 2
    A Guide to the Principal Gold and Silver Coins of the Ancients cover
    A Guide to the Principal Gold and Silver Coins of the Ancients Barclay V. Head · 1881 · English · Handbook / Manual Head’s guide selects representative gold and silver coins from the British Museum to illustrate the chronological and artistic development of ancient coinage. Seven plates and concise... 7 plates Head, Guide
  3. 3
    Historia Numorum: A Manual of Greek Numismatics cover
    Historia Numorum: A Manual of Greek Numismatics Barclay V. Head · 1887 · English · Handbook / Manual The first edition of Historia Numorum provides a mint-by-mint survey of Greek coinage, summarizing chronology, metals, standards, types, legends, rulers, and historical context across the... HN¹
  4. 4
    The Silver Coinage of Crete: A Metrological Note cover
    The Silver Coinage of Crete: A Metrological Note George Macdonald · 1919 · English · Specialized Corpus Macdonald examines the weights and standards of Cretan silver coinage, using a plate and comparative data to address the relationships among island mints and external monetary systems... 1 plate Macdonald, Crete
  5. 5
    Babelon, Traité I
    Treatise on Greek and Roman Coins, I: Theory and Doctrine Ernest Babelon · 1901 · French · Handbook / Manual The theoretical first volume explains how ancient coins were produced, classified, read, and used as historical evidence. Babelon treats metals, denominations, weights, fabric, legends... Babelon, Traité I
  6. 6
    Common Greek Coins, Vol. I cover
    Common Greek Coins, Vol. I Alfred Watson Hands · 1907 · English · Handbook / Manual Hands focuses on widely encountered Greek series rather than rare types, including Athenian owls, Corinthian pegasi, Aeginetan turtles, Boeotian federal coins, Alexander tetradrachms, and...