Numismatic and History Discussion Forums > Roman Coins Discussion Forum
Constantine? Contantius? Spock?
Falderal:
--- Quote from: Pekka K on January 07, 2022, 02:35:03 am ---
Handbook of LRBC types, 324 - 395 gives:
G on standard Late 340 to Mid 341.
Pekka K
--- End quote ---
So that dates the coin to a matter of months? That's incredible. So I can safely say 340/41. Because these marks are in several-month intervals, what do they relate to? Not likely astrological.
maridvnvm:
I suspect that the shape of the ear is a result of the skill (possibly lack of) / planning (possibly lack of) of the engraver. He is trying to convey the diadem passing behind the earl. I have been browsing through my gallery at the range of ears that occur in my collection during this period. There is a lot of variability. I must admit that I haven't looked at the ears in detail before.
A simple spiral:-
Rounder but more attempt at showing anatomical detail:-
A half oval:-
A half circle with "stuff" inside :-
London seems to go for a quite simplistic form:-
With your coin it looks as though the point at which the ear meets the diadem was badly planned. The ear appears to have been intended to be an outer semi-circle with an inner line of dots. At the conjunction of the diadem and the ear the outer line of the ear seems to stop having either been obliterated by the diadem or stopped to avoid going over the diadem. I infer this because the square of the diadem appears to be where we might expect the curve of the ear to be.
I don't believe it to be intentional.
Your mention of Spock however has put me in mind of another coin in my collection. Whilst it doesn't have a pointed ear the eyebrow and facial expression on this coin have always put me in mind of Spock. Imagine a coin where both facets were combined..
Heliodromus:
--- Quote ---So that dates the coin to a matter of months? That's incredible. So I can safely say 340/41. Because these marks are in several-month intervals, what do they relate to? Not likely astrological.
--- End quote ---
Probably the only dating certainty here is that these M/I/G coins with PARL mintmark were issued after the death of Constantine II in April 340 AD. We know this since he is not present on these coins (and also the mintmark change from PCON to PARL reflects the city's name reverting from Constantina - named for Constantine II - back to Arelate).
I'm not sure where the end date of later 340 or 341 comes from... guess work or something more concrete?
Given a beginning and end date, the time period would then just have been divided in three as a rough approximation for these M/I/G dates!
The following VICTORIAE DD AVGG Q NN bronze type, which RIC dates to 347-348, also starts with an issue mark of "G", so whatever these letters refer to seems unlikely to be date related if these dates are correct.
SC:
A few comments.
First on the ear: I suspect that the two "blobs" you are seeing - in the ear and just above and behind the earlobe - are actually corrosion products. It is not unusual on this kind of smooth, shiny, dark green patina to have small flat "lumps" that have the same patina/finish but are actually corrosion products, or more property adhesions products of leached copper. They often "pop" off when manipulated with a scalpel. If I am correct then the ear would actually look quite normal beneath. Personally though I would not risk the cleaning, it is fine as is.
Second: RIC-VIII is grossly out of date when it comes to dating the VICTORIA DD AVGG Q NN type. It starts in 341/342 not 347, there was no six year gap as postulated in RIC. I cover this in depth in "A Handbook of Late Roman Bronze Coin Types 324-395", but the short version of the story is that Kent mis-dated the coinage to 347-348 in RIC-VIII, likely based on an over-reliance on data from UK hoards. Depeyrot used evidence from continental hoards to show that production remained steady - if slow - 341-348 with the Victoria type struck right through. Kent agreed to this interpretation at the 1991 Congres internationale de numismatique, but by then the damage had been done. RIC-VIII has not been updated since and many other numismatists, as well as authors, dealers and collectors continue to follow RIC, not realizing the date was accepted as wrong 30 years ago. Interestingly, in LRBC, which was published before RIC-VIII, Hill had the correct start date. He dated the coinage 341-346. His end date was wrong as LRBC had 346 instead of the proper 348 for the start of the following FEL TEMP REPARATIO coinage.
Third: That means that the G mark at Arelate was used in the last GLORIA EXERCITVS issue struck late 340 to mid-341 and on the first VICTORIAE DD AVGG Q NN issue struck late 341 to early 342. Thus immediate continuity.
Fourth: We known what these marks were for - the fulfilled some sort of accounting and control function by signifying issues, also referred to as emissions by many authors. Sometimes these marks were annual, or bi-annual, or trimestrial, etc. Other times the period of use varied. What we sadly don't know is what these marks meant - in other words did they stand for anything or were they just symbols. At most mints at most times only symbols were used (e.g. :circlelinedot: , :crescentdot:, :star: etc), but at times letters were used or even "monograms" (several letters connected in ligature e.g. :HR: :NP:). People have wondered if these indicate the names of mint masters, masters of the treasury or other regional officials, or perhaps spelled out coded phrases, but no one is certain.
SC
Heliodromus:
--- Quote ---We known what these marks were for - the fulfilled some sort of accounting and control function by signifying issues, also referred to as emissions by many authors. Sometimes these marks were annual, or bi-annual, or trimestrial, etc. Other times the period of use varied. What we sadly don't know is what these marks meant - in other words did they stand for anything or were they just symbols.
--- End quote ---
I'm pretty sure that when letters were used as "issue marks" they *always* meant something, just that (today at least) we can only guess some of them with high confidence (T-F, S-F, etc).
I'd agree that these M/I/G (etc) letters are probably issue marks (i.e. each from a separate issue), but not sure that's a 100% slam dunk. There are other times when we see varied marks/letters within a single issue. Aquileia did that on a few occasions under both Maxentius and Constantine, as did Siscia (VLPP altar letter "S" at :Greek_Gamma: :Greek_Delta: :Greek_epsilon:, "I" at :Greek_Alpha: :Greek_Beta:). Ticinum may have used altar letters "P" and "R" within the same issue without distinction by officina (or these may have been distinct issues - hard to tell, except perhaps by suggestion of Siscia).
We can get a feel for what types of things these issue/other marks referred to by looking at the more obvious ones, although of course practices may have changed at different times/mints.
Looking at Constantine's time, some patterns emerge:
1) Feel-good slogans of the day, such as Temporvm Felicitas (T-F), Saecvli Felicitas (S-F), Roma Felix (R-F), Popvli Romani (P-R).
2) Reference to the mint owner, such as Sicsa VLPP "C" (Constantine), or Lyons C-R (Crispus).
3) Reference to the mint, such as Siscia VLPP altar "S" and "I". I guess Rome's RFP and RBP mint be considered as this type of mark too (Roma Felix, Roma Beata).
Looking at these c.340 gallic gloria exercitvs standard letters, there are a few things that may help narrow the guesswork:
1) When Constantine II was alive, we only see letters at Lyons: S, I, Y
2) At Trier and Arles, after Constantine II's death, we see the same letters at both mints: M, I, G
3) At Arles, while Constantine II was alive we see the letters X and N repeated in the PCONST and PCON marks.
Seeing Trier and Arles use the same M/I/G letters suggests these are not mint specific, and might be related to Constans who had taken over these mints by killing Constantine II. The same class of meaning of Constantine II's Lyonese S/I/Y probably carries over to Constans' M/I/G.
Arles' "X" & "N", given that they repeat, seem to be distinct from the M/I/G, and should not be considered as part of this group. Given prior use of a Chi-Rho issue mark, Arles' "X" is likely meant as Christian, but the "N" is unclear.
What evidence is there for any regular annual/biannual/etc issues? It seems that time between issues (or issue mark changes) generally varied widely from many per year to multi-year without change.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version