Posted 01/15/2011 11:51 pm
It's a local piece for you, t0rress. It's a Roman Provincial, from the city of Marcianopolis, now known as Devnya, Bulgaria. Wikipedia. Obverse: conjoined busts of Gordian III and the Egyptian deity Serapis. Reverse: Athena standing holding patera and inverted spear. Listed as Moushmov 786 in Wildwinds; that example sold at auction for $45 in 1999.
These coins are one of the few classes of Roman Provincial coins for which an actual denomination is known: the large E to the right of Athena appears on practically all the bronze coins of Marcianopolis this size from this time period, so it's assumed the E in this case is the Greek numeral 5 and the coin was tariffed at five Roman asses. The coin is therefore sometimes known as a pentassarion, but the older catalogues usually just give it the standard size-designation AE26.
These coins are one of the few classes of Roman Provincial coins for which an actual denomination is known: the large E to the right of Athena appears on practically all the bronze coins of Marcianopolis this size from this time period, so it's assumed the E in this case is the Greek numeral 5 and the coin was tariffed at five Roman asses. The coin is therefore sometimes known as a pentassarion, but the older catalogues usually just give it the standard size-designation AE26.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
