Announcement and Call for PapersXIVth Seminar in Middle Eastern and Central Asian Numismatics in Memoriam Boris Kochnev (1940-2002)Hofstra University, New York

9 March 2024

Photo: © Heidemann

Call for Papers:
On Saturday, March 9, 2024, the XIVth Seminar in Middle Eastern and Central Asian Numismatics in Memoriam Boris Kochnev (1940-2002) will take place at the Hofstra Unviersity in New York, USA. 

If you are interested in presenting a paper, please send the title of your talk by February 20. According to the plan, the program will be formed by the end of February. As usually, the geography of presentations can range from the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea to the deserts of Xinjiang, while the time frame is limited to pre-modern times. Each talk will be allocated 25 minutes + 5 minutes for questions.
The meeting is planned to be  face-to-face, but the participation of a limited number of on-line speakers is also possible . The conference is free of charge and open to public.
For more information please contact: aleksandr.naymark"AT"hofstra.edu.

Announcement:
Besides the call for papers, we are glad to announce that Prof. Dr. Stefan Heidemann will also paritcipate in the conference presenting a paper on "North African Silver: Money for Western Eurasia - Its Rise and Demise". 

Abstract:
Late Antiquity saw a tremendous change among the two wings of the Hellenistic world, the Persian Sasanian landed empire, and the maritime empire of the Romans. The tribally organized Muslim military forged from both a new empire. The monetarization of commerce and state even superseded that of the Sasanian Empire by far. The fiscal, trade, and monetary economy was blossoming as it had never before in the Western Eurasian World. To keep this economic machine oiled, the Late Antique empire needed always the influx of two commodities, silver and slaves. New silver mines were accessed allowing a much cheaper technology for extracting silver.

The North African dirham production during the ʿAbbāsid period played at least for a short period an outsized and crucial economic role in the economic growth of the highly monetized Islamic empire and even far beyond.
This stresses the importance of the role of the Muhallabid Madīnat al-ʿAbbāsiyya as a gateway of silver for the economic growth in this period.

Participation:
The conference is free and open to the public, but please RSVP to aleksandr.naymark"AT"hofstra.edu just to make us aware of your coming. The online participation via Zoom is also possible, click here for the direct zoom link or join using the following credentials:
Meeting ID: 952 4968 8066
Passcode: 643671