Roman Tessera?

[leetoone]

Can anyone provide any further help with this Roman bronze item? It seems to be blank on the reverse.

[tacrolimus]

Past November number of an Italian numismatic magazine, Cronache Numismatiche, has a brief paper dealing with some specimens like your. Three of them are pictured (just the face with the galley, of course).

The letters above rowers are MPV, NPV and MAD; weights between 0.5 and 1.60 g

The author, Mario Ladich believes they were produced at Ostia because of a note following the tesserae indicates they were found around Ostia. He also believes they can be roughly dated late I cent BC - early I AD.

He quotes two catalogues:

- Munzen and Medaillen AG, Basel n. catalogue 502 (1987), 2 specimens
- Italo Vecchi, Nummorum Auctiones n. 15 (1999), 1 specimen

They are probably part of a larger series consisting of other types like horse, dolphin, .... all with the same square shape.

I'm sure rugser and yafet rasnal know much more than this on the subject.

Luigi

PS: The illustrations of Ladich paper are small, but i can show if of interest

[Rugser]

I totally agree with Luigi.   
This type of tesserae  have almost all been found to Ostia next to the  Rome ports .   
They probably had a local use within the enslaved workers in the naval port.   
The few numismatic that have examined the problem are not concordant.
Hi leetoone 
Do you know the origin of your tesserae?

ser

[leetoone]

Thanks both for your help.

I picked it up a year or two ago at a coin fair here in the North of England. It cost the equivalent of US$50. No other provenance. I thought it looked interesting and value for money. I hadn't researched it at all until now. Do other examples come on the market very often?

My example weighs 1.3 g.

Luigi - I would be interested in seeing the Ladich illustrations if that is possible.

I look forward to seeing if yafet rasnal has anything further to add.

Best wishes

Lee

[tacrolimus]

Sorry for the bad quality.

Luigi

[tacrolimus]

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[tacrolimus]

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[leetoone]

The first two both look like MPV rather than MPV and NPV?

Lee

[leetoone]

Mauseus kindly alerted me to the following tesserae offered for sale in the CNG Mail Bid sale 53 (Mar 15, 2000). One was unsold and one made $180.

[yafet_rasnal]

A specimen sold by forum

[Ardatirion]

Confirmation that these are in fact found in southern Italy is provided by specimens from Minturnae. I would date these to the 1st century BC - 1st century AD, earlier than the main body of lead and bronze tesserae,

Medas, Stefano, Mechtild Overbeck, and Novella Vismara. 1996. Minturnae Antiqaurium: Monete dal Garigliano II. Rome: Soprintendenza Archeologica per il Lazio. See particularly pl. XI, 5.