Coin or something else

[Petronius]

Dear Colleagues,

I was shown the piece from the photograph.
I doubt it is a coin, because there are no any inscriptions on either side.
To my eyes on one side an urn is depicted and on the other – 3 standards.
The exemplar weighs 3.58 g, diameter is 14 mm and die axis is 7 h.
What do you think – coin, weight, tessera, something else?

Greetings

[Petronius]

Just to add, that to me the piece looks cast and not struck.

[Petronius]

Anybody?
No ideas at all?

[SC]

Not a coin though it borrows imagery from coins.

I believe that urns like that are found on Roman provincial coinage from Anatolia and are associated with Games.  The standards like like those found on the coinage of Nicaea.

SC

[shanxi]

The standards like like those found on the coinage of Nicaea.

There are also quite a lot of price urns from Nicaea

https://tinyurl.com/ybsrxt9r

[Petronius]

Well, thanks to otlichnik and shanxi we found a die match.
Coins with similar obverse and reverse side we find by Nicaea, Bithynia but never with such a combination as our piece.
On coins of Neocaesarea, Pontus we see the same subject with urn depicted.
Obviously our question exemplar isn’t a coin, but why not a weight?

[SC]

Weights are rarely two sided.

Given the association with a game prize urn, I would suspect it is a token related to some sort of Nicaean games.

"Admits one" ??

SC

[djmacdo]

The older literature calls these prize urns, but there are images of athletes wearing them on their heads, so they are now often called prize crowns.  Weird looking for headgear, though.

[Petronius]

Well, very interesting.
I am trying to propose a dating for the piece.
Anybody knows when did these Nicaean games start?
I see that the theme with the price urns or crowns first appears on coins of Commodus.
The standards I find on provincial coins of Caracalla first.

[SC]

The imagery would point to the first half of the 3rd c AD.

SC