Coins are pieces of history

Staff Reporter

Muscat, Oct 17

The National Museum, the Smithsonian Institution of the United States of America and the US embassy in the Sultanate hosted a lecture on museum management in the twenty-first century for Omani museums specialists and students.

The lecture titled “Exhibition Development: A Case on Money as Material Culture" was presented by Douglas Mudd, Curator/Director of the American Numismatic Association’s Edward C. Rochette Money Museum in Colorado Springs, Colorado, last week on Zoom platform.

Douglas Mudd said: " When you are holding an ancient coin from 2,000 years ago, that is literally history in your hands. You can study and learn from it in a way not possible with larger objects - especially since coins are much more common (in general) than many other artefact."

"Coins are pieces of history that, when understood, have a tremendous amount of information to offer - anything from the technical capabilities of a culture (they could smelt metals, part them and shape them into coins) to their history - what they thought was important (images of gods, rulers, battles, bridges, etc.) to dates for rulers and historical events - coins are especially important to archaeologists because many are dated or can be dated and their origin can be identified easily,” said Douglas.

He also mentioned the challenges that museums are facing in preserving money today, which are space and knowledge about how to identify, handle, conserve and interpret money. Most museums have no idea how to care for and use coins in their exhibits and educational programming - and it is not easy to find individuals that have the necessary knowledge. Coins and medals in particular require specialized storage and conservation that is quite different from that for most metal objects.

The lecture targeted employees from several institutions including; the National Museum, public and private museums, the National Records and Archives Authority, the Central Bank of Oman, Oman Across Ages Museum, the Scientific Research Council, the Sultan's Armed Forces Museum.

The lecture included several topics, the most prominent of which was an introduction on the origin of currency, as well as the collection management through dealing with various currencies in the stages of storage, restoration and preservation, furthermore the methods of displaying, installation and interpretation development were discussed.

Support for this series of lectures comes from the US Embassy in the Sultanate. The Embassy has provided similar training opportunities by sending specialists from the National Museum, the Archives and Documentation Authority, and the Ministry of Heritage and Culture (formerly) to the United States of America for the International Visiting Leader Program for several weeks.