I recently bought this coin from Wayne Sayles. It's an Umayyad post-reform AE fals, undated (c.700-750 AD) from the mint of Tabariya (Tiberias), Album 188. The reverse shows a lion. But look carefully at the obverse, between about 2 and 3 o'clock: To me, that looks like lettering in the Roman alphabet, and given the size of the coin (15mm), would imply that this was overstruck on a late Roman bronze coin. There seems to be some precedent for such an overstrike, I found this example on Zeno: https://www.zeno.ru/showphoto.php?photo=170017 So, do you agree that this is an overstrike on a coin that was ~300-400 years old at the time, or am I seeing things?
Who knows, could be overstruck over Roman or Byzantine coinage, but I definitely see what you see. Nice catch.
I agree but can not name the undertype. I believe the zeno.ru undertype may be Valentinian rather than Valens judging from the spacings. Wonderful find!
Great coin! That’s pretty fascinating. It looks to me like there could be more vestige characters under the mineralization in the 8 to 11 o’clock area.
