Tejas

Great coins and very interesting contribution. I visited Speyer cathedral last year. It is really quite something. Especially the graves of all the medieval emperors are awe inspiring.

That is a beautiful coin. I really like the portrait. Congrats

Judging by the coins, Caracalla seems to have had a certain set of prefered deities, of which Venus Victrix, Apollo and Sol are the more common and Asklepius and Serapis the more unusual choices.

I also have a PROFECTIO reverse, but the other, more common type. Apparently, I paid 35 pounds in 1997 for this coin 🙂 Caracalla's facial expression is hauntingly realistic on this coin. The die sinkers were true artists.

The OP coin is very impressive with an interesting history. Here ia a recent Caracalla acquisition of mine: Obv.: ANTONINVS PIVS AVG GERM Rev: VENVS VICTRIX Measurements: 5.35g, 23mmRIC IV 311. I like this coin, because it shows a particularly expressive bust and Caracalla is wearing a lorica plumata (scale armour), which is rarely seen on coins. I have, in fact, the same reverse type, but with an obverse, which shows Caracalla wearing a draped cloak.

Nice catch of a historically interesting piece (especially at this price). Given the findspot distribution and the fact that Germanic runes have been found on a few of them, the attribution to East Germanic tribes is quite plausible.

Agreed, the overall security situation is not deteriorating, as far as I know. However, these robberies, which target historically significant objects like the Celtic gold hoard in museums are very frustrating [removed, off topic]

Yes, I think gold and silver were almost completely unavailable in China in significant quantities, which is why base metals (bronze and even iron) dominated their coin system.

Since the 42-nummi denomination was used by the Vandals in Africa, but not by the Ostrogoths in Italy (who had a 40-nummi denomination), I tend to think that these are Vandalic counter marks. I know, however, that this has been discussed controversially in the literature.

Here is another nice portrait of Trajan Decius. The reverse is common, but the qualitity of the portrait is quite stunning. Obv.: IMP C M Q TRAIANVS DECIVS AVGRev.: VBERITAS AVGRIC 28b.

Well, I don't think that this is a fair assessment of the work undertaken by the authors of the study. Science can certainly give us indications how a material was treated. It can tell us if articifcial substances have been used to apply encrustations or if the surfaces have been artificially manipulated to create a certain appearance. Put differently, if the authors had found artificial compounds in the encrustations and concluded that they were man-made, I guess you would be among the first to exclaim that science has proven that the coins are fake, just as you knew all along. We should not reject scientific evidence just because we don't like it.

I agree, if a further study could show that these encrustations form on gold in a matter of days, weeks or months in the ground, this would undermine the conclusions of the paper. I don't think that an early 18th century forger from Transylvania (of all places) would go through the length of creating signs of wear and tear before burying gold coins, worth a fortune at the time in the ground for several years or decades in order to fool people who had no means of analysing earthen deposits anyway. I really hope that the controversy encourages another team of researchers to continue the technical investigation and to either confirm or disprove the findings of the current study.

Well, there is evidence, but you don't find this evidence convincing, which is a different matter. Hopefully, other people with the required technical skills and means agree with you and re-examine these deposits to our satisfaction.

Maybe for the same reason that the overly-heavy gold coins of the corpus of Ukrainian gold imitations show strong signs of circulation?

Of course, anybody can make any unfounded claims, but the thing is that the authors have conduced scientific examinations and their claims are based on their findings. So any counter claim will have to be based on similar scientific examinations. Otherwise they are just unfounded claims.

I have a number of Trajan Decius Antoniniani. They used to be really cheap in the 1990s. At least that is my impression. But this one is a more recent acquisition. Obv: IMP C M Q TRAIANVS DECIVS AVG Rev: ADVENTVS AVG RIC 11b. Measurements: 3.91 g., 22 mm.

I think to prove that something could have been done is no prove that it actually has been done. If I understand correctly, the authors of the new study have shown that the Glasgow coin shows wear that is consitent with or typical for circulation. And, on top of this wear they found encrustrations, which they claim is consistent with the coin having been buried in the soil for a long time. At the same time, they found no artificial substances or glues. So even if we could show that these encrustations could be replicated with 18th (or better 17th century technology) this still leaves the question open of how likely it is that a forger of that period would go through the processess required to produce the wear and tear and the encrustations. I think to prove conclusively that the coins are 18th or 17th century fakes, we would need a second technical examination, which disproves the present one, by showing the presence of artificial substances ( or other kind of glues) or by demonstrating that the wear and tear occured after the formation of the encrustations. Since style, manufacture and weight are of no use in a case like this, it is down to technical evidence. At present the available technical evidence says that the Glasgow coins had seen circulation and was buried in the ground for an extend period of time before coming to a public collection in 1713. This evidence has to be dealt with on its own terms.

I agree, the paper's findings are not proof that the Sponsian coins are ancient, but the findings are certainly evidence for the antiquity of the coins. Unless somebody can show that their evidence is wrong or has been mis-interpreted it adds weight to the hypothesis that the coins are ancient. Likewise, their evidence cannot be disputed with reference to the wrong style or the wrong weight. Anybody wanting to dispute their findings has to tackle the evidence head on and produce technical counter evidence that shows that the deposits have been produced artificially or could have resulted in a way other than by long-term burial in the soil.

Despite his ad hominem attacks, I think Mr. Vaneerdewegh raises a good point about the motivation why some people regard these coins as ancient while others dismiss them as 17th/18th century forgeries. For my part, I am not invested in these coins being genuine or not. Unsurprisingly, I don't own such a coin and I should be of indifferent to whether or not the coins are ancient or not. However, I realize that I do have a bias in favour of Sponsian: It was some 20 years ago, when I was offered the first Ukrainian gold imitation. Given my interest in imitations in general, I was intrigued, but very skeptical. I showed pictures of the coin to several highly reputable auction houses and a numismatist at the British Museum. The unison verdict was that the coin was a ridiculous, i.e. laughable and obvious fake. Fortunately, at the same time I was interested in so called "coins of the unkown people", better called Taman imitations from southern Russia on which I wrote a short article. Hence, I was familiar with Russian numismatic literature of the 19th century that refered to strange looking imitations of Roman gold coins from southern Russia, which were, however, unknown in the west. I decided to buy the coin (at a surprisingly low price) and it is now an undisputed and particularly attractive part of the corpus of Ukrainian imitations. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that Mr. Vaneerdewegh would have been one of those who dismissed the coin as obvious and laughable fake on the basis of style and weight. So I guess this story gives me a certain bias towards "wanting" the Sponsian coins to be ancient. However, I do realise that the debate will only be settled if and when a Sponsian coin is unearthed in a controlled excavation.

Got it, thanks for the clarification. That makes sense. As far as I can see, the barbarians never made up a new Roman name with a title, when they could not decipher a legend. They just imitated as many letters as they wanted on the coin to make it look like a Roman coin to other untrained and illiterate eyes.

The assessment by Nick Vaneerdewegh is interesting. Above is his conclusion. I think his allegations against the authors of the technical study are very serious. He accuses them of "confirmation bias" and overinterpreting "flimsy evidence". He basically implies that they are themselves fraudsters that used unscientific methods by producing a study to confirm a preconceived opinion ("The authors want the coins to be real"). Again, these are extremely serious accusations, which could damage the reputations of the authors of the study. I think it would have been better for Mr. Vaneerdewegh to attack the technical arguments of the authors, instead of attacking their reputations. I just hope, that Mr. Vaneerdewegh has more than just his reference to "style" and "weight" to back up his allegations of "scientific wrong-doing".

Ok, so the barbarians were literate, but misread the official legend and instead of reading GORDIANVS came up with SPONSIANI. I am not aware of such a case in the corpus of Ukrainian imitations (aurum barbarorum). There is the case were the barbarians added Germanic runes, but I have never seen any treatment of the Latin legend that would suggest that they were literate or that the Latin inscription held any meaning for them. I don't understand the argument with the legend starting at 1 o'clock. The coins are highly irregular to start with. Why would you expect anything but an irregular legend? But you are right, in the corpus of Ukrainian imitations you find cases were the legend is only in front of the portrait (cf. Anokhin no. 79).

Thanks for the summary. I stumbled on the coin below in the Vienna Münzkabinett. I have to check later, but I think I have a die-identical piece in my collection: MK-ATW-KHM | Probus (Imitation) ab 276–282 n. Chr. (ikmk.at) Mine still has a loop and I think on the Vienna coin the loop was removed.

So the argument is: illiterate barbarians blundered a Roman legends to the extent that a new legend emerged, that contained a valid Roman name and title? I guess that is theoretically possible, but I would think that this is highly unlikely. I can't follow your second point either. You are saying that because the name Sponsian is rare, it cannot be that a real Roman emperor, general or official bore that name? In the 3rd century, emperors could originate from humble origins. This must be even more true for generals and officials. I am not certain, but my guess is that names like Iotapian and Pacatian were also not among the typical names of Roman emperors.

This is quite a remarkable passage in the new paper: "The name Sponsian itself is highly peculiar and a far from obvious choice from the point of view of a hypothetical forger. Only one other instance of it is known, from a first century funerary inscription in Rome which names an obscure individual called Nicodemus Sponsian [39]. Here we emphasize the fact that the inscription was excavated in the 1720s [40] so could not have been known to a hypothetical forger, who would therefore have to have invented a peculiar name that later proved genuine." I thought the name Sponsian, was perhaps known or even common so that an educated forger could pick the name from the written sources. However, the authors show that the forger could not have known the name, but instead would have invented a name that only later turned out to be authentic. I don't know what the chances of this are, but it strikes me as highly unlikely.