Martin Beckmann

Survey And Excavation at Nysa on the Meander, 2009: The Gymnasium Portico and Palaestra

In July and August of 2009 a team from the University of Western Ontario undertook a five-week season of survey and excavation work at Nysa on the Meander. The team’s efforts were focused on the gymnasium. Ground-penetrating radar was used to survey the area of the gymnasium; this revealed not only the course of the portico and a number of rooms bordering it, but also three large and unexpected structures in the area of the palaestra itself. Excavation then focused on identifying these unexpected structures. One proved to be an extremely large and deep cistern pre-dating the construction of the second century ad gymnasium. The other two structures were contemporary to the gymnasium and consisted of two 90 m-long elevated water channels, possibly decorative in function, running parallel to the porticoes on either side of the palaestra. Finally, two inscribed marble pedestals were discovered, one of which names a prominent citizen of Nysa, probably Titus Aelius Alkibiades, who is known to have lived in the city during the reign of Antoninus Pius. These results constitute a significant advance in our knowledge of the physical form and chronology of the gymnasium at Nysa.

The Significance of Roman Imperial Coin Types

Abstract Did Roman Imperial coin types have significant news or propaganda content, or were they generic? This article (focussing on the coinage of Trajan) argues that this depends on what part of the coinage is considered. The gold and bronze coins had substantial news content, but the silver coinage generally did not. This situation arose because two factors, sometimes conflicting, governed the choice of coin types in Trajan′s mint: first, the desire to select topical images; second, the need to maintain uninterrupted the mass-production of coins. As a result, the lower-volume portions of the coinage were adorned with more up-to-date types, and these were changed often; the higher-volume coinage on the other hand – especially the silver denarii – tended to employ generic and outdated types.