Historians of the Crusades: archaeology, cartography and numismatics

rdf:langString Historians of the Crusades: archaeology, cartography and numismatics

rdf:langString Historians of the Crusades: archaeology, cartography and numismatics include those authors whose work was in the auxiliary sciences of history, including the areas of archaeological exploration; historical geography and cartography; numismatics and sigillography; and document analysis techniques. Much of this work is based on the accounts of travelers to the Holy Land which are presented in a related article. * Archaeological disciplines have contributed to the understanding of the history of the Crusades by verifying or refuting accounts presented in original sources. Particular emphasis has been on Crusader castles, history of the art of the period, and document analysis techniques such as palaeography, diplomatics and epigraphy. * Historical cartography, geography and topography are important sources in the study of the history of the Crusades. Some of the more important authors and their works are presented below, supplementing works that are essentially travelers' accounts. * The disciples of numismatics, the study of coins and other money, and sigillography, the study of seals of Byzantium and the Latin East, play an important role in interpreting histories. The coinage of Outremer that has been studied are the coins of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Frankish Syria, and those of the Islamic world, including Frankish imitiations. In his article in the Catholic Encyclopedia, French historian Louis R. Bréhier (1869–1951) identified archaeological, cartographical and numismatics sources as a key for historical understanding of the Crusades. Principal authors and their works are identified below. Many of these overlap with historians and travelers discussed in the companion articles in Historians and histories of the Crusades, and many of the works meet multiple categories in the overall work. Related articles include Biblical archaeology, the list of Christian holy places, the study of numismatics, the cartography of Palestine and the cartography of Jerusalem. The travel accounts in the Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society (PPTS) library are also of interest.