A Message from our Sponsor

Dear Britannia Nummaria 2024 participants,

I wish to thank everyone for participating in Britannia Nummaria, whether you were a speaker, an attendee, or served in an administrative capacity. Several participants travelled considerable distances, and I hope you feel your time, and effort, and funds were well spent.

In 2011, two things happened in my life. I attended the predecessor to Britannia Nummaria, which was called Moneta Britannia, and I met Sam Moorhead and learned about the Frome Hoard. Roger Bland asked me to consider funding a British Museum finds curator post to free up Sam Moorhead so he could focus most of his time on researching and writing a revised RIC V on Carausius and Allectus and also work on the nine hundred plus Carausius coins in the Frome Hoard. As I was an enthusiastic collector of the coins of Carausius and Allectus, and also very interested in the coin hoards of Roman Britain, I immediately agreed to fund the position, and Philippa Walton was hired.

I had no idea how many years this journey would require, but it’s now been fourteen years. Fortunately, at some point in time Graham Barker stepped in and agreed to co-fund the position. Philippa was succeeded by Vincent Drost, who was succeeded by Andrew Brown, and I just learned that Matthew Ball will now step into this role. It gives me immense personal satisfaction to know that aside from freeing up Sam to work on RIC V, the funding of the finds curator position has served as a stepping stone for the career development of the individuals who have occupied the position. Philippa was on the faculty at the University of Reading, and recently moved to the University of Leicester. I am hoping she will invite me to participate in any parking lot excavations! Vincent is now the curator of Iron Age and Roman coins at the Bibliotheque nationale de France (BnF) in Paris. Andrew has stepped into Sam’s senior curatorial position at the British Museum. It’s a wonderful feeling to have played a role in seeing young people with career aspirations fulfill those aspirations.

Now, I would like to turn my attention to the central character of this drama….the incomparable Sam Moorhead. What can I say? Sam is an incredible numismatic scholar and an incredible human being with an indomitable spirit. Not only did he take on the challenge of revising RIC V, but he accomplished this objective in the face of serious health issues that would have sidelined most human beings. What he has accomplished with the soon to be published tome otherwise known as RIC V, especially given the adversity he has faced, is unbelievable.

When I first embarked on this “adventure” with Roger, and Sam, and Philippa, I envisioned that someday there would be a successor to Moneta Britannia at which we would “release” RIC V. While its publication has been delayed, it is practically a fait accompli. Britannia Nummaria 2024 has exceeded all my expectations of what I envisioned. I would like to express my deepest appreciation to Lee Toone and Richard Bourne for making it happen. If Sam is Superman, then Lee and Richard are Batman and Robin. I would also like to express my appreciation to our fabulous moderators, Andrew Woods and Andrew Brown. Finally, I would like to give accolades to all of our amazing speakers. I have often attended conferences where in certain sessions I inevitably doze off or my mind wanders. It was not so with Britannia Nummaria 2024. According to my chi-square test, every speaker made a statistically significant impact on the audience! Everyone listened with authentic interest, and nobody faked their attention with a forger’s mold. Our speakers boldly gouged and punched their points, and hammered home their conclusions. Our grand finale was a panegyric worthy of the Tetrarchy!

As I look back on Moneta Britannia 2011 with nostalgic fondness, Britannia Nummaria 2024 is freshly glowing in my near term memory. I do not know if I will be around a decade from now for a follow-on event, but with young talent like Tasha Fullbrook, Matthew Ball, and Emily North, I am filled with optimism about the future!

All the best to everyone,

Richard Beleson

Britannia  Nummaria 2024

Update 18th June 2024

Registration

Please note that registration will close on 30th June when we have to give final numbers to the conference venue. If you wish to attend, please apply and pay the conference fee in good time. We may have a few places available after this date because of cancellations and so on but we cannot guarantee this.

Museum Tour

The Yorkshire Museum have kindly offered conference participants the opportunity to have a curator led tour around the Roman galleries on the Wednesday afternoon before the conference. This will be led by Dr Adam Parker, Curator of Archaeology and Dr Andrew Woods, Senior Curator, who will introduce the highlights of the gallery. These include the Ryedale and Wold Newton hoards, as well as Four Seasons mosaic and Tombstone of the ninth legion’s standard bearer.

This will take place at 3 o'clock on the 17th July and will last approximately 45 minutes. You can then take the opportunity to explore the rest of the museum at leisure until it closes. This tour is free for conference participants and we are very grateful to the Yorkshire Museums Trust for this offer. Details of how to register for this will be sent to all participants in early July.

Updated 13th May 2024

The Britannia Nummaria 2024 numismatic conference will be held on Thursday 18^th July 2024 in the main hall at The Guildhall, St Helen's Square in central York. A wonderful medieval riverside location. The bi-annual York Coin Fair takes place at York Racecourse on the following two days. The conference programme and registration are now available in the links. A precursor to this event was Moneta Britannnia 2011 and the website for this conference is still available here.

One reason for the conference is to "launch" the following numismatic books that are due to be published in 2024:

Ghey, E. (ed.) 2024. Recent Discoveries of Tetrarchic Hoards from Roman Britain and their Wider Context, British Museum Research Publication no. 236, London. Published April 2024.

Cloke, H and L Toone with A Marsden, 2024. The London Mint of Constantine and Constantius, 2nd Edition, Spink, London. Publication expected May - June 2024.

Moorhead, S. 2024. Roman Imperial Coinage Vol. V, pt 5 ; Carausius and Allectus, Spink, London. Publication date to be confirmed.

The first of these includes full catalogues of the Wold Newton, Rauceby and Fyfield hoards – see here for further details.

We envisage the scope of the conference to be slightly broader than the Britannic/Tetrarchic period and to include other numismatic topics with links to Britannia, the Severans for example. There may be other fringe events held around the conference itself.

For example, Malton Roman Festival is taking place on Sunday, 21st July and promises to be an excellent event. Further details are available on the Malton Museum website. See the link in the "Links Bar" on the right.

Registration is now open and the programme and speakers have all been confirmed. Additional speaker information is being added. Please bookmark and follow this page to ensure you are advised of any updates.

Dave Greenhalgh (Grunal Moneta) will also be attending the event with his hammer, block and Carausius and Allectus dies and will be striking souvenir coins during the breaks at the back of the Hall. Don’t worry no striking while the speakers are on - unless they overrun of course .... 

Immediately after the conference ends, there will be a chance to socialise at Harkers, where we have arranged a private side room. This is very close to the conference venue and has a part of the Roman fortress wall in the cellar below. Again, the link is to the right.