Ann M. Zakelj (1947-2019)

We met in Cleveland, Ohio, 1996, when I was a contractor with the U. S. Department of Defense Financial Accounting Service (DFAS). When she handed me her card, I read her name as “Za-kelly.” She corrected me. “Zay-kell,” she said. “The j is silent.” In my cubie, I had a picture of the Greek goddess Eirene carrying the infant Ploutos. Most people assumed that it was the Virgin Mary and Christ Child, but she identified it correctly. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. 

We attended the ANA conventions in Cleveland (1997), Cincinnati (1998), New York (2002), and Pittsburgh (2004).  Ann came to numismatics late in life bringing a special passion supported by many years of world travel, a facility for languages, broad reading, keen insight, and deep reflection. 

Ann was very active in her church, St. Vitas, and for them, and others, she crafted proscenia, and other decorations. So, when Ann began collecting ancient coins, her aesthetic judgment always brought her the best examples for the price. Her primary interest was for classical Greek, but she also worked hard on the Severan dynasty, especially the women. Eye-appeal was more important than completeness; and she was an eclectic gatherer, rather than a focused hunter. 

In a casual conversation, we agreed that the coins of Alexander the Great probably portrayed Alexander, and we set out to prove it. We spent over 18 months assembling research, meeting in restaurants, and exchanging information in emails. We published “Portraits and Representations of Alexander the Great,” in The Celator, Vol 16., no. 7, (July 2002).

Ann loved to travel and had been to every continent but preferred Europe, especially the Balkans where she had many cousins. Her easy skill with languages served her well. On Rhodes, they thought she was Turkish. In Istanbul, her accent sounded Greek. But it was never a problem because she had a winning personality. She was a natural extrovert and probably got the Sphinx to talk. Ann was born in Austria on March 10, 1947, and passed away peacefully among family, on February 13, 2019.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

The First Dagny

Reflections on the Passing of a Comrade

Reflections on the Passing of Comrades

Irene Louise Babos Marotta Joseph

The Purse of Eratosthenes

For about 10 years in the 1990s, I worked on assembling a collection of ancient coins worth about a day's wages from the towns and times of Greek philosophers. I was inspired by an episode of Carl Sagan's Cosmos, "Backbone of the Night." Although I discovered that I lack the passions of a true collector for rarity, condition, and completeness, I was rewarded with explorations in ancient history and the opportunity to learn enough classical Greek to do my own translations.

Drachmon from Kyrene c. 550 BCE Zeus Ammon and Silphium
(About the size of US 5-cent nickel)

I discovered the town of Cyrene (Kyrene), near what is today Benghazi. Eratosthenes of Cyrene was the third Librarian of Alexandria (from 245 BCE) after Zenodochus and Callimachus. Circumference by Nicholas Nicastro (St. Martins 2008) reviewed on this blog (here) is a modern biography of Eratosthenes and his works. He was also a grammarian and historian. His other mathematical work includes a "sieve" to find prime numbers.  His biography is on Wikipedia, of course: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes  It is also repeated more succinctly here: 
http://www.math.wichita.edu/history/men/eratosthenes.html  
and more fully here:
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Eratosthenes.html

The Hellenistic world was very much like our own time: held in tension by science and superstition, commerce and war, ecumenism and parochialism.

Kyrene was founded by Dorians from the island of Thera in 631 BCE. Its primary claim to fame was the presence of silphium. Silphium was discovered to prevent pregnancy. It was highly valued and eventually harvested to extinction, despite valiant attempts to cultivate it there and elsewhere. Not surprisingly, the history of Kyrene reflected many of the cultural trends of the times. Twice, it suffered from constitutional crises as factions in the assembly became gangs in the streets. Both times, the solution was to send to Athens for philosophers skilled at politics who created compromises. 

Obol or hemi-drachm. Demeter with Eagle killing snake.
(About half the size of a US dime.)

The town also was home to two women who married a Ptolemy: Berenike I and Berenike II. The constellation Coma Berenices was supposedly the hair  of Berenike II, offered to the gods for the safe return of Ptolemy III Euergetes from a war in Syria. "Veronica" is the latinized form of Berenike. 

Among the ancient philosophers, the Cyrenaics followed the teachings of Aristippos. The school was maintained and extended by his daughter, Arete, and her son, Aristippos. Though originally a student of Socrates, Aristippos asserted his own line of thought. He advocated seeking pleasure by adapting to circumstances. He gave up the safety of a city and traveled widely. To understand the consequences of that, remember that Diogenes the Cynic was captured by pirates and sold as a slave. It was not unusual for the times. There was no safety outside the city walls. Yet, the Alexandrians coined the word "cosmopolitan" for the universal citizen or citizen of the world, not tied to any one city, but comfortable anywhere.

Ptolemy II and Berenike I. Alexandria Mint.
(Bronze coin about the size of a US quarter)

Eratosthenes, the town of Kyrene, and the Library at Alexandria became a focus for my interests and one of the first articles I wrote about the numsimatics of the ancient world was “The Purse of Eratosthenes: the Coinage and Commerce of Cyrene,” The Celator, Vol. 8, no 1, (January 1994).  (Founded by Wayne G. Sayles, The Celator passed to a couple of other editors and publishers and then closed just a few years ago.)  

We quip and quote about the long run of history, which may or may not repeat itself to our doom. The fact is that the Library of Alexandria attracted savants from all across the Greek koinon ("union").  They developed their own distinct and universal dialect, in which, ultimately, the New Testament was written. When the house of Ptolemy fell on hard times, the library released many of its scholars to find their own ways. Rather than marking a nadir, it caused a secondary flourishing in the Hellenistic world as accumulated learning was cast to the winds to flourish wherever open minds were found.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS
Happy Pi Day of the Century 
Bringing Philosophy to Athens - Aspasia of Miletos
Numismatics: History as Market 
Valentine's Day: Love and Money

CIRCUMFERENCE

Democritus of Abdera posited the existence of atoms. Aristotle accurately described the embryology of the chick.  Aristarchus put the sun at the center of the planetary system.  Yet nothing like “science” existed before the Renaissance. When Eratosthenes measured the circumference of the Earth by comparing shadows at noon on the summer solstice, remarkable as it was, and enduring as it would prove to be, his work was singular: neither a test, nor a disproof; neither a challenge, nor an argument.  It simply was.  But what was it?

St. Martin's Press, 2008.

 Nicholas Nicastro wrote five historical novels (three of them set in ancient times) before taking on this thin biography.  The life and works of Eratosthenes are mostly lost to us, destroyed when the Great Library of Alexandria and smaller collections across the world were looted and their  books burned as Hellenistic civilization collapsed. What we know about him is second-hand from Strabo, Polybius, the 10^th century Suda, and similar sources.  Nicastro reconstructs as much as seemed relevant to the story here: how and why the librarian of Alexandria computed the size of the Earth as one element in his general geography.  In fact, Eratosthenes invented the word geography.

The Hellenistic world was very much like our own time: held in tension by science and superstition, commerce and war, ecumenism and parochialism.  Nicastro spans all of that because the known facts of the life and works of Eratosthenes are so few.  Much of the book is given over to calculations in various ancient stade measures (whence the modern "stadium").  Like many other technical reads for large audiences, the end notes are not keyed within the text.  Keep a bookmark there so that you can flip back and forth. 

Coin from Cyrene c. 480-435.
3.34 gr.  1.5 cm.
Zeus Ammon / Silphium.

Eratosthenes came from Cyrene, a city in what is today Libya near what is today Benghazi.  He studied philosophy in Athens before being appointed to the Great Library by Ptolemy III Euergetes.  Nicastro underscores the fact that contrary to our common opinions today, Athens was not a home to learning and philosophy until after its Golden Age and eventual downfall in the Peloponnesian Wars. Anaxagoras, Protagoras, and Socrates all had been tried for impiety.  Nicastro also argues that Eratosthenes probably did not travel to Siwa (Aswan) to see the sun overhead.  He might have sent an underling from the Museum to do that.  A single fragment letter from Archimedes to Eratosthenes suggests a long correspondence between the two.  

But Eratosthenes was more than a geometer.  Just as most of Newton’s writings were not about physics, so, too, did Eratosthenes mostly write on grammar, poetry, and history.  That was apparently the attraction for Nicastro. “[He] received a BA in English from Cornell University (1985), an MFA in filmmaking from New York University (1991), an M.A. in archaeology and a Ph.D. in psychology from Cornell (1996 and 2003).” (Wikipedia).  It takes one to know one.

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Ancient Hearts

Science in the Middle Ages

Astronomical Symbols on Ancient and Medieval Coins

Indian English: Totally Legend Like Anything
Profits and Benefits in Learning a Foreign Language

Valentine's Day: Love and Money

"Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy on life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself. ... Love is our response to our highest values–and can be nothing else. …" Francisco d'Anconia to Hank Rearden in Atlas Shrugged.

Common image found all over the web,
likely from the ANS catalog

The gulf between love and money in our culture goes to the root and rock of who we are as a society ... now...  But there is no dichotomy between love and money. Both derive from the same source.  In the near future, when a significant minority of individuals expresses the unity of love and money, that will have changed.




A.N.A. MONEY TALKS Transcript No. 1400
ANCIENT HEARTSby Michael E. Marotta, first aired February 14, 1994

Look around . . . heart symbols are everywhere on Valentine's Day.
Maybe even on a coin.

The first heart symbols that appeared on ancient coins were produced 2500 years ago in North Africa.

The town of Cyrene was founded in the 7th century B.C. by Greeks. Their town was eventually destroyed, but it was near what today is the city of Benghazi, along the coast of Libya.

The city enjoyed modest prosperity . . . until its inhabitants discovered the silphium plant. (The plant is extinct now, but its closest living relative is a key ingredient in Worcestershire sauce.) Silphium was used as an herb. Its stalk was edible. Its pungent sap was the basis for cough syrups, and gave food an interesting flavor. But the most important use for silphium was as a contraceptive.

From The New York Sale XXV 5 January 2011 Lot number: 126
Ex J. P. Rosen coll. and ex Münzen und Medaillen AG,

Basel sale 72 (1987), 424

Modern research suggests that silphium actually worked, and because of this, it was in great demand. Attempts to cultivate it in Syria and Greece were unsuccessful. It only grew near Cyrene--and, starting in 500 B.C., it became a steady source of income for the townspeople. By Roman times, silphium had been harvested to extinction.

Over the centuries, the silphium plant came
 to symbolize Cyrene. The plant appeared on the town's gold, silver and bronze coins, starting around 500 B.C. Often the entire plant was shown. But sometimes, only the seeds of the plant were depicted. The silphium's seeds were heart-shaped, and those heart-shaped seeds that appeared on Cyrene's coins eventually came to symbolize love--a symbol that's still with us today.

 
"Ancient Hearts" is archived at the NumisSociety and Coin Talk websites.  Francisco d'Anconia's speech on "Sex and Morality" is transcribed and posted at "Sharing is Living."

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS

To Make Money

Merry Newtonmas 2011

Merry Newtonmas 2012

Nerd Nation 4.5