About The Project
The Cilician Armenian Numismatic Archive (CANA) project is a cornerstone of the Armenian Numismatic Research Organization (ANRO). It was born out of the recognition that the numismatic legacy of Cilician Armenia, a period fraught with conflict and transformation, was yet to be fully understood and appreciated in its entirety.
The most significant work on Cilician Armenia was conducted by Paul Bedoukian, whose research encompassed thousands of coins. His work serves as a foundational base for our knowledge, but it left multiple unproven linkages – chains of coins attributed to certain kings based on theories that, over time, research and progress have rendered questionable.
Cilician Armenia was a tumultuous period in our history, marked by Islamic conquests, Crusader incursions, and a tangled web of wars and alliances between various kings and empires. These events directly influenced the coinage of the period, resulting in shifting iconographies and styles that paint a vivid picture of our past. Our understanding of this numismatic sequence is still a work in progress; however, the CANA project aims to illuminate these historical narratives through the meticulous cataloging and analysis of Cilician Armenian coins.
The CANA project endeavors to create an exhaustive database of every known coin from this period. By allowing users to inspect high-resolution images of these coins, we hope to further the understanding and scholarship in this field. Over time, as the database grows and more coins are added, we expect to gain deeper insights into the coinage of Cilician Armenia.
However, our work is far from over. The CANA project is a living initiative, continually growing and adapting as new discoveries come to light and our understanding of Cilician Armenia's numismatic history evolves. We are excited about the potential of this project to reshape our knowledge of this critical period in Armenian history, and we invite you to join us on this journey of discovery.