The E-Sylum:  Volume 7, Number 46, November 14, 2004, Article 23

STUDENTS STUDY ROMAN COIN COMPOSITION

  Arthur Shippee forwarded a link to an article about two
  Indiana high school seniors bringing together Roman
  numismatics and science for a science fair project:

  "Clay High School seniors Andrew Betson, left, and Christo
  Sevov hold ancient Roman coins Thursday morning. The two
  are regional finalists for the Siemens Westinghouse Math,
  Science and Technology competition. They will travel to
  Austin, Texas, next weekend to present their project.
  Betson and Sevov determined the element composition of
  Roman coins and correlated the results with the decline
  of the empire."

  "What we did," Betson explained, "was determine the
  composition of the coins as a way of tracking the fluency
  of Roman society."

  "Betson and Sevov said they were able to observe a
  correlation between good and bad Roman times based on the
  elemental composition and date of each coin.

  Using X-ray fluorescence technology at the University of
  Notre Dame, Betson and Sevov discovered that the earlier
  coins made during a strong Roman economy were minted with
  pure silver.

  As the economy and empire began to decline about A.D. 300,
  cheaper materials such as copper and zinc were being used
  to mint money. The two even found the poisonous element of
  arsenic in some of the later coins."

  "I have always loved history," said Betson, who is
  considering attending either Bowdoin College in Maine or
  Brown University in Rhode Island next year. "I wanted to
  combine history with physics."

  To read the full article in the South Bend Tribune, see: Complete Article

  Wayne Homren, Editor

	coinbooks.org Web

The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization 
promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.

To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor 
at this address: whomren@coinlibrary.com

To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum