Cups O' Byzantine...but what do they mean?

The cup coins often have weak obverses and can be hard to identify. But, the history of the period is fascinating. I recommend John Julius Norwich's three-volume work "Byzantium" or at least its one-volume abbreviation, "Byzantium--A Short History" because it is almost entirely about the emperors. (The third volume "Byzantium: The Decline and Fall" covers 1081 (Alexius I) to the end. Unlike other books on the Byzantine empire, it spends little time on administrative structure and non-imperial things. It is almost all gossip! Read it and you will want a "cup coin" of whoever you read about, and it will be inexpensive.


Alexius I, 1081-1118
26-24 mm. Remarkably silvery. Most are not.
Christ, nimbate, enthroned facing, holding gospels
Alexius I facing, crowned, with loros, holding labarum and globus cruciger
Sear 1918
DO IV 25 (part 2, plate V) part I pages 226-7 "second coinage struck 1093-1118"

 

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This coin came in a group of crusties. I believe it is Byzantine. And when I first saw it, I suspected it was a cup coin. But I am not sure. I have not cleaned it at all. Does it look like a cup coin to you all? Or is it just a case of ancient post mint damage?

Edited to say I just now recognize an human figure with a cross in the top image but it is upside down. Sorry about that.

 

Oh yeah! Cup coin. Wish I could help you ID...

 

Thanks @Ryro -When I get it tidied up, I will post it again - probably on a thread about cleaning Byzantine coins. I should have an attribution worked out by then, hopefully.

 

I was watching it but not with the intention to bid, but rather because I had never seen a better specimen for this type.
Congratulations for your purchase!

 

The image of St. Dimitrios on the first coin is excellent as well as the inscription. The "I" and "M" are melded into a single letter, a Byzantine Greek epigraphic tendency if ever there was one. I would guess that the saint in the second one is St. Constantine.

 

Dear Gary,
What I also like about the epigraphy of the obverse is the use of "eta" for "iota" in the spelling of ἅγιος. By the middle ages (even in Roman times from inscriptions I have studied) the 2 vowels were identical in sound, as they are in Modern Greek, and the 2 letters were often used interchangeably. The saint in the second coin,
Theodore I, Comnenus-Lascaris of Nicaea. Sear 2064, is St. Theodore, certainly appropriate to the emperor.

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