Contextual Numismatics?

After reading a recent post by Nathan Elkins on the American Numismatic Society discussion list, I had serious concerns that I might be suffering from a severe case of delusion or dementia. Mr. Elkins proposes to orchestrate a panel of archaeologists to discuss "Contextual Numismatics" at the 2009 AIA meeting. Granted, I have only been a professional numismatist for 41 years, but I rather thought that I might have heard most of the terminology used in the field. So, I hopped over to that repository of all human knowledge, Google, and searched for the term—hoping to bring myself up to speed. Ouch, not a single hit. Just to make sure my browser was working, I searched for something everyone has heard of "Ilkhanid Coins". Bingo, 648 links. Ok, one more "Russian wire money", 489 more links. Contextual Numismatics? -- Zip. This, I thought, ought to be a lively discussion panel. Perhaps I was unfair to search a general resource for an academic term. So, back to the browser I went and pulled up the American Numismatic Society web site. Searching for "contextual numismatics" I found zero documents. Finally, I tried the Archaeological Institute of America web site: "Your search yielded 0 results." The term is apparently unknown to anyone but Mr. Elkins. It should be interesting to see how the discussion goes when the subject is undefined and unknown.

It's all well and good that people want to study ancient coins. It may be particularly good that archaeologists study ancient coins, since they have done relatively little of that in the past. But where, pray tell, does Mr. Elkins find the audacity to criticize numismatic scholarship of past centuries, not to mention more recent times. His view is exceedingly egocentric and patently inaccurate. If Mr. Elkins wants to feather his academic CV with a panel presentation, it would be a far more reasonable and pertinent premise that archaeologists, private collectors, independent scholars and professional scholars in a wide array of disciplines can learn much from each other. Indeed, that is precisely what happens today, in many cases, despite the polemic ramblings of a few hardliners and the AIA sanctions against cooperation by their members. In reality, this panel is just a thinly veiled way to seek justification for making context the primary aspect of numismatic research. That is like trying to put a square peg in a round hole. Meanwhile, we can be comforted by the fact that serious numismatic research continues every day in the real world of numismatics.