Tonight by chance I found the website www.ancients.info - perhaps known to some or all of you, but among its features were 30+ links to other highly-specialized (ancients) websites and web pages. For instance, GHAZNAVIDS YAMINI DIRHAMS and The Life, Family and Coinage of JULIA DOMNA. Those are just two of many links associated with the site, and I pass it along with hopes it will benefit some of our members. Comments welcomed.
It's a good site, hosted by one of the largest ancient coin malls, Vcoins. The quality of the individual collectors' sites varies, however, depending on a particular collector's experience and web-designing skills. But it's definitely worth perusing. If you want more information, FORVM is the largest online hub for collectors and scholars of ancient coins from all over the world.
For several years my website was hosted by ancients.info and I bought many coins from vcoins. Then the company was sold and I had problems communicating with the new management so I moved my site to Forvm space. Now there has been another change returning at least partially to the original glory but I still have bad taste in my mouth from the matter. Certainly there will be some of the free websites provided by ancients.info and Forvm that will be better than others and the academic elite will tell you to ignore any information not found on a site marked .edu or .gov. That is your decision. They also sponsor a discussion group for ancients rather like CT and Forvm but it has been about six weeks since anyone posted there.
Ancient collectors are lucky there are lots of good websites now for them. Back in the day, we had to settle for yahoo groups and the like. The one thing to be careful of, though, is accuracy. There are lots of good sites, like Doug's, but others iffy sites. Most of the time they are done by well meaing folks, but are simply inaccurate because the site owner doesn't know any better. That is the one huge issue with the internet, lack of editorial and proof reader oversite. I do not believe most appreciate this enough. I have seen attritbution errors repeated over and over on the internet. These sites are great, but if you wish to be sure of something, you always have to go back to the source documents. There ARE really good attribution sites. I would accept CNG attributions almost without question. Things like Wildwinds, though, being culled from what any dealer attributes a coin as, has tons of errors. Like most things in life, evaluating the source is critical.
While I certainly agree with this thought, we must also realize that the same critical thinking applies to books and all other media as well. We once had some protection since it was hard to get a book published in the day when someone had to put up the money for a large run of books. Now we have books printed on demand. I can go to Costco and print up a single very professional looking book for $25-$50 depending on size. Publishers no longer have to risk being stuck with 5000 copies of a book no one will buy. They can print more if they are needed. Many web sites are single author works with no one proofreading them before they are uploaded. I appreciate receiving a note when someone finds an error (spelling or factual) since these are easily corrected online (not so easy on a printed book). This after the fact editing is what makes Wikipedia work. The need for peer review requires both delay in time and in the problem of finding a suitable peer. When a work breaks new ground, it may not be so easy to find someone else who could detect errors. In the old system, new thought might be rejected simply because it is new and strange enough to the establishment thought that we might never see the work. In most cases this protected us from error. Most is not all. I prefer the current system. Just because you, or some PhD in a major university, tells me something, I will not accept it as the gospel truth. Certainly I will examine the argument and consider the factors that led to the decisions presented but we don't need to accept a book just because it has covers. There are old books from the 'good old days' written by major players that have turned out to be just plain wrong. Whether you hear it on CT, read it in a magazine or in a hardback published by Oxford University, read just a little carefully and watch for places where the author might be chasing the wrong rabbit down the wrong hole. A great example of critical thinking is the question of Albert Einstein at least partially supporting Earth Crust Displacement which has now been abandoned by experts in favor of Plate Tectonics: http://2012hoax.wikidot.com/einstein I find it interesting that someone now feels the need to write a page defending Einstein who died before the theory was disgraced. The letters quoted do make it clear that Einstein was aware of weaknesses in the theory but his writing of a forward to a book of errors does make one wonder what he would have said on the matter had he lived a few more years. If you trust Einstein, do it because he was firmly based in the system of scientific theory, not because he was the big name in the game.
Good points Doug. I still remember reading some reviews of books in Kroh's guide, my favorite being, "I think I am actually dumber by reading this". Yes, printed pages do not make it right, but having experts giving opinions of an authors statements and arguments, attributions, etc. I judge a book based upon what others, whom I consider experts, say about it. If a book is on CNG's bibliography to me that is a strong statement in support of it. Similarly, a website like Parthia.com, with its reputation within the ancient world, makes this site an excellent resource. Problem is, most people do not have access to most of these stated sources. So, they have to trust the authors of the site the coins are attributed correctly. This is the disconnect. I own a lot of resources, and have pulled them out a lot of times only to discover the coin attributed as BMCXXX or SNG Cop XXX or RIC VI XXX etc are NOT the coins pictured. If SNG Cop is the reference, and you do not own it, you are trusting the author is correct with his attribution. There are simply way too many errors on the internet in this regard. So, bottom line, you have to trust the source. If its a book and is supposed to be an attribution guide, look to see if its listed as a standard for the series. If its a website, cross check their attributions from other sources. I have done that many times with CNG and have never seen a major error, something I cannot say about some other sites, and Ebay just forget about. Btw, the Wiki model is not perfect either. There are a few citations I have corrected, and their writeup of many Huns are hopelessly outdated. Its still only as good as those who participate. That is a problem, as well as it constantly changing. How are experts supposed to comment on the validity of the comments there if they can change daily? There is no certainty with constantly changing websites. It might have been correct on Tuesday, but full of errors on Wednesday. Would you want to attribute a coin based on something I could go in and change at will?
