Money talks, so they say, but tomorrow, a prominent archaeologist will be at Portland State to talk about money. Archeology professor John Papadopoulos will give a lecture titled “The Origins of Money: Coinage, Art and the Construction of Values in the Ancient Mediterranean” at the PSU School of Business tomorrow.
Professor to speak on ‘The Origins of Money’
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Money talks, so they say, but tomorrow, a prominent archaeologist will be at Portland State to talk about money.
Archeology professor John Papadopoulos will give a lecture titled “The Origins of Money: Coinage, Art and the Construction of Values in the Ancient Mediterranean” at the PSU School of Business tomorrow.
The lecture, which is hosted by the Archaeological Institute of America, delves into the history of currency and the shaping of culture in ancient Greece and the surrounding countries.
“With the recent recession, a lot of people are asking ‘what is money, anyway?’” said Portland branch AIA founder and PSU professor Karen Carr.
The Portland branch of the AIA has exceeded the 50-person requisite for AIA-hosted guest lectures, allowing students at PSU opportunities to attend similar events throughout the year.
While this is accurate, Papadoupolos’ lecture intends to expand this concept into a larger conversation about the shaping of city-states and collective identity in the ancient Western world.
“One of the most critical developments in the course of Mediterranean history was the invention of coinage,” the lecture abstract states.
While the elite used forms of wealth such as land, the invention of coinage offered a means by which the masses could participate in business transactions.
These innovations in currency also had one distinct feature: emblems of these Mediterranean city-states placed on the coins they produced. This helped create what the abstract calls “systems of dominance” that affected the production of social orders that previously did not exist in the
ancient world.
In the years following the recession, many people have finances on their minds. Students in particular are dealt a heavy blow, with student debt exceeding any other form of debt in the country.
The lecture will give PSU students the opportunity to reflect on how these “systems of dominance” have evolved into the current monetary system.
Few are as qualified as Papadopoulos to give such a lecture. According to the AIA website, Papadopoulos is a leading professor in both archaeology and classics at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
After earning his doctoral degree from the University of Sydney, Papadopoulos spent time as a curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum in LA.
Papadoupolos also has first-hand excavation experience, giving his talks the extra edge of taking knowledge outside of the classroom.
His work includes the article “Greek Towers and Slaves: An Archaeology of Exploitation,” along with nine books and more than 75 other articles.
The lecture will be given tomorrow, in room 190 of the Portland State School of Business Administration Auditorium, starting at 7:30 p.m. According to Carr, the common belief is that currency was developed for soldiers who were constantly on the move, and for whom common aspects of wealth such as land and animals were impractical.
