Many Roman coins have a mintmark of some sort in the exergue, the bottom part of the reverse of the coin. My main area of interest, the LRB period, tends to have exergues in this format; SMXY, where SM is Sacra Moneta, and X is the first letter of the mint, and Y is the numeral for the officina (branch) of that mint. Of course, some of them don't have the SM and start with the officina letter and then abbreviate the mint, such as: Roma - *rSISC* Where the dots mean (something) and there is Gamma as the officina letter and SISC as the abbreviation for Siscia. However, sometimes we have rather unusually long mintmarks that spell out something a bit more interesting. Valens - R*PRIMA where R = Rome PRIMA = first officina. No idea why this one is so unusually long, but it's kind of neat to see it spelled out entirely like that. Julian - VRB*ROM where VRB = Urbs (city) ROM = Rome This is cool, because instead of spelling out the officina number, it goes right into it and says "CITY OF ROME" Finally, an earlier one: Aelius - PANNONIA Instead of an officina or a mint, it spells out the entire province of PANNONIA. The Pannonia coins often have the word split up between left and right fields, but this one is kinda intersting because it squishes it all in the exergue. Of course, we also have some provincials where it, instead of a mint or province, spells out the regnal year of the ruler! Trajan Decius - ANIIII And we also have the provincials that have such an extraordinarily long reverse text that they are forced to finish up the legend in exergue: Diadumenian - YΠ CTA ΛONΓINOY NIKOΠOΛITΩN ΠΡO-C ICTΡ where the legend is too long to fit around, so they put the CICTP on the bottom. I guess they finally ran out of space to finish up the last word as ISTRUM and left it as ISTR What's the most interesting/longest exergue text you have?
THUNDRBOLT! Cuz: Reverse had a lotta things going on! RI Probus 276-282 CE Ant 21mm Rome mint captive on ground, Riding Horse (SPLIT HORSE!) in ex R-Thunderbolt-Z RIC 155
A picture is worth 10,000 words so my Aurelian lion is equivalent of a lot of letters. This Constantinople Julian II AE1 bull has a rather long and unusual abbreviation for the sity CONSP followed by the officina gamma and a branch. Unusual and not short are the Rome mint AE3's including this Crispus with R (for Rome) and EPWC followed by the officina gamma. Not everyone believes the idea that EPWC is Greek for the Latin AMOR which spelled backwards is ROMA. I do. When it comes to long exergues it is hard to beat this Gordian III of Nikopolis which continued the city name in three lines totaling 15 letters. The first line is actually a bit above the very short groundline under the rear hooves of the horse. The line above it is a die break and not the groundline. Herennia Etrucilla from Anazarbos tried to win with this AE29 by squeezing 16 letters into just two lines. Does three lines beat two or does 16 letters beat 15? Macrinus and Diadumenian cheated with their Marcianopolis three line, 25 letter super-entry but put all those letters on the obverse. Exergues are fun.
I, too, like exergues with images. This coin of Constantine I has, inexplicably, 2 captives in the mint mark. I don't think anyone knows why. Lugdunum (Lyons) mint, A.D. 320 RIC 79 (var.) Obv: CON-STANTINVS AVG (Unrecorded obverse inscription break) Rev: VICTORIAE LAET PRINC PERP - Two Victories holding shield inscribed VOT/PR above altar P[2 captives]L in exergue 19 mm, 3.2 g.
The lion exergue @dougsmit showed is phenomenal. I get that the XXI in the left field gives the ratio of copper to silver contained in this coin, and I assume the S in the right field identifies the officina (secunda, sexta, or septima?) – yet I have no idea what the lion signifies. Do you know more about this? I have a moon, sun, and star mintmarks from Siscia. The first coin was formerly yours, Doug – I won it in AMCC2: Constantine I, Roman Empire, AE 3, 328–329 AD, Siscia mint. Obv: CONSTANTINVS MAX AVG, bust of Constantine I, rosette.diademed, draped and cuirassed, r. Rev: PROVIDENTIAE AVGG; "camp gate" with two turrets, star above; in exergue, ΓSIS-crescent. 19mm, 3.5g. Ref: RIC VII Siscia 215. Ex Doug Smith collection; ex AMCC 2, lot 496 (their picture). Crispus, Roman Empire, AE 3, 321–324 AD, Siscia mint. Obv: IVL CRISPVS NOB C; head of Crispus, laureate, r. Rev: CAESARVM NOSTRORVM; VOT X in wreath; in exergue ΔSISC-sunburst. 20mm, 3.24g. Ref: RIC VII Siscia 181. Constantine I, Roman Empire, AE 3, 335–336 AD, Siscia mint. Obv: CONSTANTINVS MAX AVG, bust of Constantine I, diademed, draped and cuirassed, r. Rev: GLORIA EXERCITUS; two soldiers standing facing each other, standard between them; in exergue, ASIS-star. 15mm, 1.45g. Ref: RIC VII Siscia 261.
Nice idea for a thread.... Bolskan AE unit... "BOLSKAN" in Celt-Iberian in exergue. Commodus......CONC MIL