{"id":13433,"date":"2020-11-12T17:00:35","date_gmt":"2020-11-12T15:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.univie.ac.at\/?p=13433"},"modified":"2026-07-14T15:36:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T13:36:33","slug":"what-stories-do-historical-medals-tell-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.univie.ac.at\/en\/humans-of-university-of-vienna-en\/what-stories-do-historical-medals-tell-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Human of #univie Benedikt: What stories do historical medals tell us?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">\u201cNumismatics? And what is that? \u2013 This is the reaction I get most of the time when somebody asks me what I am interested in and what I want to specialise in during my master\u2019s studies. Simply put, numismatics is the study of the history of coins and money. Anyone who thinks of \u2018grandfather\u2019s old collection of coins\u2019 now and views numismatics as a boring and monotonous discipline is mistaken.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">As part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/studieren.univie.ac.at\/en\/extension-curricula-and-alternative-extensions\/\">extension curricula<\/a> of my <a href=\"https:\/\/studieren.univie.ac.at\/en\/bachelordiploma-programmes\/history-bachelor\/\">bachelor\u2019s programme in History<\/a>, I could discover the multifaceted and diverse nature of numismatics. The discipline studies all forms of money from the point of view of history in general as well as in terms of art, cultural and economic history. I am especially interested in the fringe areas of numismatics that are still partly under-explored. Religious medals are one example: I learnt the handling of such medals in an introductory seminar and could use my knowledge during an internship at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. During this internship, I handled and determined medals that were found during an archaeological excavation at the cemetery of the Elisabethinen Hospital in the third district of Vienna. (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.derstandard.at\/story\/2000116157174\/als-man-noch-den-heiligen-benedikt-und-nicht-die-1450\">On the website of the Austrian newspaper <i>Der Standard<\/i>, Benedikt talks in more detail about his internship and about the stories that religious medals tell us.<\/a> (in German))<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">When I handle historical objects like I did during my internship, I do not do so just for the sake of the objects themselves. Rather, I want to discover their embeddedness in a greater (historico-)cultural context. This means that I want to deal with things of the past systematically, identify traces of them in the present and understand their effect, meaning and use, as well as ask more comprehensive questions about them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Currently, I am doing the bachelor&#8217;s programme in History, but I think it is important to go beyond the limits set by the curriculum and to deal with academic contents also beyond the courses at the University: I want to develop my own ideas and projects, look for interdisciplinary approaches and establish contacts with other researchers and disciplines. After all, when I do research in an archive, organise an archaeological excavation, construct an online database or write an article, I gain important experience \u2013 for my degree programme or future research activities.\u201d \u2013 <em>Benedikt Prokisch<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Benedikt is studying <a href=\"https:\/\/studieren.univie.ac.at\/en\/bachelordiploma-programmes\/history-bachelor\/\">History<\/a>\u00a0at the University of Vienna.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cNumismatics? And what is that? \u2013 This is the reaction I get most of the time when somebody asks me what I am interested in and what I want to specialise in during my master\u2019s studies. Simply put, numismatics is the study of the history of coins and money. Anyone who thinks of \u2018grandfather\u2019s old &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.univie.ac.at\/en\/humans-of-university-of-vienna-en\/what-stories-do-historical-medals-tell-us\/\">Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":13994,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[817],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humans-of-university-of-vienna-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Human of #univie Benedikt: What stories do historical medals tell us? - The univie Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.univie.ac.at\/en\/humans-of-university-of-vienna-en\/what-stories-do-historical-medals-tell-us\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Human of #univie Benedikt: What stories do historical medals tell us? - The univie Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cNumismatics? And what is that? \u2013 This is the reaction I get most of the time when somebody asks me what I am interested in and what I want to specialise in during my master\u2019s studies. Simply put, numismatics is the study of the history of coins and money. Anyone who thinks of \u2018grandfather\u2019s old &hellip; Continued\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blog.univie.ac.at\/en\/humans-of-university-of-vienna-en\/what-stories-do-historical-medals-tell-us\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The univie Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/univienna\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-11-12T15:00:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-07-14T13:36:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blog.univie.ac.at\/relaunch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/HumansOfVienna_Portrait_50_BenediktProkisch_FULL_RES1-1024x709.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"709\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Armin Ulrich\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@univienna\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@univienna\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Armin Ulrich\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.univie.ac.at\/en\/humans-of-university-of-vienna-en\/what-stories-do-historical-medals-tell-us\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.univie.ac.at\/en\/humans-of-university-of-vienna-en\/what-stories-do-historical-medals-tell-us\/\",\"name\":\"Human of #univie Benedikt: What stories do historical medals tell us? - The univie Blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.univie.ac.at\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2020-11-12T15:00:35+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-07-14T13:36:33+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.univie.ac.at\/#\/schema\/person\/b4e043e3b400bde922186d8f9bf7553e\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.univie.ac.at\/en\/humans-of-university-of-vienna-en\/what-stories-do-historical-medals-tell-us\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blog.univie.ac.at\/en\/humans-of-university-of-vienna-en\/what-stories-do-historical-medals-tell-us\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.univie.ac.at\/en\/humans-of-university-of-vienna-en\/what-stories-do-historical-medals-tell-us\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Startseite\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/blog.univie.ac.at\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Human of #univie Benedikt: What stories do historical medals tell us?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.univie.ac.at\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.univie.ac.at\/\",\"name\":\"The univie Blog\",\"description\":\"Blog of the University of Vienna\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/blog.univie.ac.at\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.univie.ac.at\/#\/schema\/person\/b4e043e3b400bde922186d8f9bf7553e\",\"name\":\"Armin Ulrich\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.univie.ac.at\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4766aac7f4ee1481e28c8b2f9e53b1c019b5006fb77582972c8c69e98c4c8b17?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4766aac7f4ee1481e28c8b2f9e53b1c019b5006fb77582972c8c69e98c4c8b17?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Armin Ulrich\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Human of #univie Benedikt: What stories do historical medals tell us? - The univie Blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/blog.univie.ac.at\/en\/humans-of-university-of-vienna-en\/what-stories-do-historical-medals-tell-us\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Human of #univie Benedikt: What stories do historical medals tell us? - The univie Blog","og_description":"\u201cNumismatics? 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