Toward a World History of Pre-Modern Coin Imitations

Among historians, it has become axiomatic that coinage over three millennia served three purposes: as a medium of exchange, as a store of value, and as a unit of account. The communicative aspects of coinage, i.e. the imagery it carries often by way of issuer propaganda, have been of less interest even if it remains the mainstay of numismatists. But in the world of numismatics, globally framed studies of imagery or iconography are rare. This article is aimed at correcting this imbalance, at least provisionally. It will explore the main archetypes of coinage imitation by way of inferring commonalities or dissimilarities through the ages, with particular emphasis on the Islamic world. It is hoped that this effort will encourage larger-scale efforts to map out coin imagery comparatively, so as to gain a better understanding of its propagandistic properties.