Better Late Than Never: Newell Manuscript Finally Published

by Rick Witschonke

The 2008 volume of the American Journal of Numismatics contains an article by Edward T. Newell, the former ANS president and benefactor who died in 1941. The article provides a detailed catalogue of the coins found in archeological excavations at Beisan in Israel. How this article finally came to be published is in itself a fascinating and illuminating story.

Fig. 1. Howland Wood, Edward T. Newell, and William Clark (L–R).

The City

The site known in Newell’s day as Beisan has had many names over the centuries. It is mentioned in the Bible (Joshua 17:11, Judges 1:27) as Beth Shean, and in the Hellenistic and Roman periods it was known as Nysa-Scythopolis. It is also referred to as Bit-sani, Bati-shar, and Tell el-Husn, the Mound of the Fortress. Today it has again taken on its ancient name: Beth Shean. The site is thirty-five miles east of Haifa and fifty miles north of Jerusalem. The location is strategic, standing at the crossroads of the only lowland route from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River and a major north-south trade route. Eighteen occupation levels have been identified by excavators, dating from the Neolithic (4500 BC) to the twelfth century AD, including three centuries of New Kingdom Egyptian occupation. The importance of the city is indicated by the fact that, in the first century AD, it rivaled Jerusalem in size. Excavations over the past nine decades have revealed temples, bathhouses, an amphitheater, an odeon, a nymphaeum, a colonnaded pool, a basilica, a synagogue, a monastery, and a large cemetery with graves dating from 2500 BC to the Byzantine period, as well as many important artifacts. The city was destroyed by an earthquake in AD 749 but recovered slowly and persisted into the early Islamic period.

The Excavations

In the spring of 1919, the site was visited by George B. Gordon and Clarence S. Fisher of the University of Pennsylvania Museum. The mound was, at that point, overgrown with brush and presumably archeologically virgin. It must have looked promising, because the university began digging in 1921 and continued until 1933, first under Fisher and later under Alan Rowe and Gerald M. FitzGerald. This was the first of a series of Near Eastern excavations undertaken by the Museum (fig. 2). More recently, excavations at Beth Shean have continued under the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which offers an excellent Web site on the excavations: http://rehov.org/project/tel_beth_shean.htm.

Fig. 2. University of Pennsylvania Museum Near Eastern excavation sites (1921-1981).

Fig. 3. The mound at Beth Shean.

A number of articles and monographs on the Beth Shean excavations have appeared under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania Museum. Fisher wrote a summary of the 1921–1923 seasons (1923); Fitzgerald covered the Arab and Byzantine levels from the 1921–1923 seasons (1931), the 1931 season (1932), and the monastery (1939); and Rowe published on the topography and history (1930) and the Canaanite temples (1940). More recently, Frances W. James and Patrick E. McGovern have published on the late bronze Egyptian garrison (1993), and Eliot Braun on FitzGerald’s deep cut on the tell (2004).

The Coins

Clearly, coins of various periods were found throughout the excavations. In FitzGerald’s 1931 work dealing with the 1921–1923 seasons, he describes a total of forty-two coins, including a hoard of twenty Ptolemaic silver tetradrachms. From this point onward, the coins seem to have accumulated in the museum, awaiting cleaning, identification, and publication.

Sometime between 1931 and 1935, the sixty-three coins found in the 1930 season were sent to Newell at the ANS for attribution and cataloging. They were presumably sent by Arthur Tobler, assistant curator of the Palestinian section of the museum (since we know that Tobler was involved with the second and third groups). Newell produced a typescript catalog of the coins (Beisan I) and sent it to Tobler, always retaining a copy. For this first part, we also have a manuscript copy, which was written on stationery from a hotel in Atlantic City (fig. 4), perhaps while Newell was on vacation. Then, in the summer of 1935, Tobler sent Newell another 124 coins from the 1929–1932 seasons, which Newell also cataloged (Beisan II). Finally, on February 1, 1936, a further seventy-four coins, representing finds from the cemetery, were sent and cataloged (Beisan III).

Fig. 4. First page of Newell's Beisan I manuscript.

In Fitzgerald’s 1939 work on the monastery, he published a group of ten Byzantine gold coins (which had not been sent to Newell) as well as sixteen bronze coins, for which he utilizes Newell’s cataloging verbatim, and includes “Notes (by Mr. Newell),” all from Beisan I. With the exception of these sixteen pieces, not one of the 261 coins Newell cataloged has been published up until now.

Edward T. Newell

Newell was one of the greatest numismatists of his time. He took over the presidency of the ANS in 1916 at age thirty and held it for twenty-five years, until his untimely death in 1941. During this period, he authored twenty-six books (one posthumous) and twenty-six articles (not counting AJN 2008). He also catalogued and published the coins from two other excavations: Alishar Hüyük (1930–1932) and Megiddo (1924–1925), both sponsored by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. In addition, he meticulously catalogued his own collection of eighty-seven thousand coins (which now form the core of the ANS ancient trays), traveled widely, and ran the ANS on a day-to-day basis. His productivity staggers the imagination; one wonders if he worked himself to death.

Although Newell is probably best known for his work on the Hellenistic coinages of Alexander and his successors, his scholarly and collecting interests were catholic, embracing the entire ancient world. It is difficult to find a tray of ancient coins in the ANS collection where some of the most important and interesting coins are not ex Newell. His breadth is reflected in the broad range of coins from Beisan he was able to catalogue: Greek, Nabataen, Roman imperial, Roman provincial, Byzantine, Islamic, and Armenian. Like most excavation coins, those from Beisan were largely in deplorable condition. Yet, for example, Newell was able to attribute the coin from Beisan II shown in fig. 5 as follows:

II.19 Nicomedia, Constantius II, 337–361 A.D., issued between 333 and 337 A.D., AE 16, 1.4g. Obverse: FL IVL CONSTANTIVS NOB C. Laureate, draped bust r. Reverse: GLORIA EXERCITVS. Military standard flanked by two soldiers. In the exergue, SMN-. Reference: Cohen VII, p.455, no. 92.

Fig. 5. Example of coin from Beisan II.

And he was amazingly fast: we know it took him only three weeks to complete the cataloging of the seventy-four coins in Beisan III.

The Typescripts

When Newell died in 1941, the originals of his three Beisan typescripts were in the hands of the University of Pennsylvania Museum, and his copies were filed among Newell’s personal papers; these went to his widow, Adra, who kept them until her death in 1966. The Newell estate executors allowed the ANS to retain any of Newell’s papers, and George C. Miles, then executive director and chief curator, made the selection. Apparently, Miles selected all of Newell’s notebooks, manuscripts (including the three Beisan typescript copies), some correspondence, and anything else of scholarly interest. Unfortunately, he did not choose to retain the bulk of Newell’s correspondence files, and they were presumably destroyed, thus limiting our view of Newell’s tenure.

Upon examining the Newell papers, Miles was apparently curious about the fate of the Beisan typescripts, so on July 1, 1967, he wrote to the University of Pennsylvania Museum registrar, enquiring as to whether they had been published (fig. 6). On July 6, the museum responded, indicating that they had the typescripts but that they had not been published. On July 13, Miles wrote thanking the museum, asking to be kept informed. Thus, after disappearing for thirty-one years, the typescripts surfaced briefly, only to disappear again for another forty. When Miles retired in 1972, his papers, now including the Newell Beisan typescripts, were carefully stored in the ANS archives. For the past several years, ANS archivist Joe Ciccone has been slowly cataloging these papers, and in the fall of 2007 he came across the Beisan typescripts among the Miles papers. Recognizing their scholarly importance, he brought them to the attention of the curators.

Fig. 6. Miles's 1967 letter to the University Museum.

In November, 2007, the ANS contacted Richard Zettler, associate curator-in-charge, and Shannon White, keeper, in the Near Eastern section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum, enquiring about the Newell typescripts and their publication status. Dr. Zettler responded, indicating that the typescripts had not been published, and he offered their cooperation in accomplishing this objective. In January, ANS photographer Alan Roche (fig. 7) and the author visited the museum and spent two days examining, weighing, and photographing the coins, assisted by Shannon White (fig. 8) and Museum Registrar Chrisso Boulis. In addition, we contacted Rachel Barkay, author of the definitive reference on the coinage on Nysa-Scythopolis, soliciting her advice on the project. Thus, thanks to the efforts of a diverse group of people over a period of seventy-two years, the project has finally been realized. Newell would certainly be pleased that, on the 150th anniversary of the ANS, the coins he labored over nearly seventy-five years ago are finally to be published.

Fig. 7. Alan Roche preparing to photograph coins at the University Museum.

Fig. 8. Shannon White and Rick Witschonke.

Thanks are due to Joe Ciccone, ANS Archivist, for his help in preparing this article and for discovering and recognizing the importance of the Newell typescripts.