Is there numismatic proof of the Early Middle Ages?

So some of you may be familiar with the Phantom Tie Hypothesis, that the years between 617 and 911 never existed at all.

I want to try to debunk this, and I'm wondering if there is undeniable, numismatic proof of coins from the Early Middle Ages.

 

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Nothing can be known with absolute certitude. Much of what we commonly think of as known with absolute certitude is really known only with more or less probability. Is there proof positive (as in absolute certitude) that the Early Middle Ages (the Dark Ages) existed from its coinage. No, but there seems to be a good deal of coinage from the Barbarians through the Carolingians, the early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, the Byzantine Empire and Eastern empires beyond those. The simplest explanation for this coinage (Ockham's razor) is there were civilizations from that time period who produced a surviving coinage. There are some folks who will refuse to accept any evidence for something that they choose not to believe in so the only way of putting it is that there exists evidence of civilizations from that time period and what is the most likely explanation for the coinage. What are the probabilities of some other explanation for all this numismatic evidence? A sinister plot? Aliens from another galaxy? Put the burden of proof on the deniers. How do they account for the extensive coinage?

 

The theory is nonsense - I think Kevin’s mention of the Byzantine’s would probably give you some good numismatic evidence since many of their coins contain years of issue (as regal years) and could probably be pieced together. Islamic coins are also dated, but I’m not sure when that dating starts, but surely by the Abbasid dynasty which began in the mid eighth century.

But the fact that the venerable Bede - the man who popularized the Anno Domini dating system - lived at the end of the 7th and beginning of the 8th centuries, and he calculated these years, should be evidence enough.

 

That theory makes no sense. There is lots of evidence for coinage during that period from the Vandals to the Merovingians to the issues of Charlemagne. Also, Byzantine coins widely circulated and were the "gold standard" so to speak during the period. Hence the name of bezant in western europe for the widely-circulating solidus. Another popular coinage of the dark ages were dirhems struck in the Muslim lands and hoarded by the Vikings.

 

Why do we perpetuate flat earth ideas? It is a waste of thought.
NEXT!

 

How do they explain all of the archaeological and written evidence from this era? This theory is in the same vein as flat earth and fake moon landings. It’s ridiculous like those, and any reasonable person would not buy into it.

 

What next, trying to prove that Ancient Aliens don't exist?

 

Ancient aliens in Hadrianopolis ...

 

Thanks for the responses everyone. There's a thread here somewhere where people are posting coins in reverse chronological and seeing how far they can get before it gets harder to definitely date.

I'm pretty familiar with art history and architecture, so I can give a definitive timeline of architectural styles, but I'm not as much an expert on coins.

 

I wasn't aware that some people believed that the Dark Ages didn't exist...

 

The historians have largely rejected this conception:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages#Modern_perceptions

 

I don't have much interest in refuting crackpots, but it gives me an excuse to post a coin. Here is one from smack in the middle of that period, dated AH 148 = 765-766.


Abbasid: al-Mansur (754-775), AR dirhem, Baghdad mint

 

I find this to be pretty silly considering Saxons, Arabs, and byzantines all chronicled their respective history. But here is a cool wigmund styca from York

 

Smoking gun!
Thanks for posting. I wasn't aware they had dated coins all the way back then.

 

All is OK so far, but since the theory involves a current religious group and we can't have political discussion , keep it on the coins of the period. Thanks, Jim

 

The date on that coin isn't that clear. Here's a clearer one:

The date is given by the three words marked in red. Reading from bottom to top, it says "tis' wa tis'in" meaning ninety-nine, so AH 99 = 717-18. (The Umayyad Caliph Sulayman died in that year and was succeeded by Umar II.)

Confused here... is there a religious group that accepts the Phantom Time Hypothesis? In any case there's a clear expert consensus that it's a crackpot conspiracy theory, which is surely OK to point out?

 

As far as I know, there are no religious groups that adhere to Phantom Time. Unless you consider crackpots a "religion."

I guess in some ways the crackpot community is...

 

The crackpot theories seem to get more outlandish every year. This one is right up there with "we never landed on the Moon," "Earth is flat" and "The Queen is a lizard."

I wonder what it is about human nature that gives us the need to invent conspiracy theories?

I also wonder how many things we commonly believe that are actually not true?