Monday 30 January 2012

Coiney Academic Rigour: Adding it up at the CPAC

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There is a telling comment in Peter Tompa's account of the 18th Jan meeting with the CPAC. The Ancient coin Collectors' Guild had sent them a 'public comment' intending to demonstrate that Cypriot coins would not all be "first discovered" in the territory of Cyprus. They provided a list of hoards to show that such coins were sometimes buried in antiquity outside Cyprus. There was not much academic rigour in their presentation of the 'evidence' to support (rather than in the spirit of academic enquiry examine) their case, as they omitted the hoards found ON Cyprus. In his presentation at the public CPAC meeting, Prof. Nathan Elkins pointed out the sleight-of-hand. Look how Tompa justifies it to the slack-jawed masses:
If you add together a list prepared by Wayne Sayles of coins found outside of Cyprus and a list Elkins compiled of coins from Cypriot contexts, that shows that Cypriot coinage is much more prevalent in Cyprus than outside of Cyprus.
Why, in order to arrive at a conclusion about "where" certain things happened in the past would one have to "add" fresh information to what the coiney dealers had already supplied to the CPAC - except if the coiney dealers (this so-called "Ancient Coin Collectors Guild" run by people calling themselves "professional numismatists") had supplied the public enquiry with one-sided, FALSE and MISLEADING information? What other explanation is there?

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