Ancient Numimatics of the Bosporan Kingdom in 20th Century French Historiography

After 2014, archeological activities in eastern Ukraine were disrupted and many projects were halted due to military conflicts between Russia and Ukraine. The cultural treasury of the Bosporan Kingdom remains a bone of contention for modern empires for more than 1000 years of its existence. The numismatic research of the Bosporan coins conceals enormous potential for critical discoveries for the history of European and Asian cultures in future decades. The historiographical studies of the currency of the Bosporan Kingdom are the result of the exchange of information between researchers of different generations in global geographic and virtual spaces, usually at the intersection of archaeology, economic history, numismatics and epigraphy, sphragistics, cultural anthropology, history, etc. disciplines, in particular contextual numismatic as “the most recent and innovative direction of research in the field of numismatics”. The objective of my dissertation is to review and analyze French-language publications relating to the Bosporan’s coinage, which was one of the main tools with which kings "played" their political propaganda game, according to researchers from the Hellenic Studies University in the comprehensive publication "Art at the service of political propaganda: Mithridates". Jérôme Jambu, Mathieu de Oliveira - our contemporaries proved, that money as an object is undoubtedly one of the areas of modern and contemporary French historiography which, in recent decades, has been the least popular at a time when material, economic and social history is undergoing a profound renewal. If numismatics, studied in tandem with monetary production, experienced a certain golden age between the late 19th century and the mid-20th century, it has been dormant since the work of MM. Lafaurie et Prieur and F. C. Spooner and has been undergoing a slow renewal for the last 20 years, which is only waiting to be amplified. The history of money and circulation of the Bosporan Kingdom has a multi-level structure due to its integration in the system of other empires and various evolving political structures of East and West (absolute monarchies of Asia Minor and Egypt, tribes of the Black Sea, Taman peninsula, Prikubanie and eastern Azov, democratic politics Greece, tribes of Iranian and Germanic groups, Roman empire, Byzantium) until Hellenistic Kingdoms of the India. Some researchers began to investigate ancient Greek Kingdoms in China and the influence of the Hellenic world on the Chinese and other Eastern civilizations, including Japan and Korea. Keywords: Bosporan Kingdom, Ancient Numismatics, French Historiography, Archaeology of the Black Sea Region, Cultural Heritage, Cross-Cultural Exchange