Ute Wartenberg

Peter Van Alfen

This book collects the most complete, current scholarship on the history of known examples of ancient electrum coinage of the Greek world, with text, catalogues, and images. From the Preface The genesis of this volume took place in 2011 when then Numismatic Curator, Haim Gitler, conceived of a unique exhibition to be held at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem that would showcase the earliest coins in the Western tradition, those struck in electrum. Five hundred coins, all from the collections of Dr. Thomas S. Kaplan, Baron Lorne Thyssen-Bornemisza, and several from the Israel Museum, were displayed in a spectacular exhibition, the first of its kind anywhere that looked at electrum coinage from the seventh to the fourth centuries BCE. Catharine Lorber soon joined Gitler in curating the exhibition, White Gold: Revealing the World's Earliest Coins, a name suggested by Lorber, which opened in June 2012, with an exhibition catalogue of the same name written by Koray Konuk, Lorber, and edited by Gitler. Meanwhile, Gitler organized a conference on electrum coinage that was held at the Israel Museum the week the exhibit opened. Tom Kaplan and Lorne Thyssen-Bornemisza, who have been keenly interested in this area of numismatic research, both actively participated in the conference. We are also most grateful for their most generous support, which funded the exhibition and conference, as well as this volume, and also for their help and enthusiasm for this project. Initially, Gitler, Lorber, and Konuk planned to publish the conference proceedings with the Israel Museum's imprimatur, but as many of the conference participants felt a follow-up meeting would be beneficial to address some of the outstanding problematic aspects of early electrum raised in Jerusalem, a second White Gold conference was held in November 2013 at the American Numismatic Society (ANS) in New York City. In 2016, it was decided that publication of the proceedings of the two conferences would be undertaken by the ANS with Ute Wartenberg and Peter van Alfen serving as the volume's editors, who received considerable editorial and other assistance on several of the chapters from Wolfgang Fischer-Bossert. Since 2013, the scope of the volume grew. Scholars, notably Kristin Kleber and Donald Jones, who had not participated in the two original conferences were invited to contribute chapters, and others who had participated offered additional contributions. While the expanded scope of the volume delayed publication, nonetheless we can now offer a fuller and more detailed picture of the evidence at hand for understanding the various contexts in which early electrum coins were produced and used.

Peter Van Alfen

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