Fremdprägung. Münzwissen in Zeiten der Globalisierung

Martin Mulsow
Fremdprägung. Münzwissen in Zeiten der Globalisierung
(Foreign coinage. Coin Knowledge in Times of Globalisation)
ISBN: 978-3-7518-0380-9
Matthes & Seitz Berlin, 2023
413 pages
42 EUR

Foreign coins from India, Japan or Arabia radiate a promising attraction. How did they get to Europe? What do the inscriptions and symbols they contain mean? And who were the people who used to pay with them? In this richly illustrated cultural-historical essay, Martin Mulsow tells the story of coin research using a wealth of hitherto completely unknown material from all the archives of Europe, thus drawing attention to an early chapter of globalisation. It is the story of a so-called intellectual encirclement of Asia. A group of scholars in the 17th and early 18th centuries explored the Near and Far East from their armchairs with the help of these coinages: Arabia was captured on cardboard, China was chronicled in notebooks, and the Mughal emperor in India came to life by deciphering intricate Persian inscriptions. They minted the coins once again with their research and projections.