Juno Moneta- Die, Anvil, Tongs, Hammer

Ok, the scales are tipping. I can see a celator looking at a contemporary cap and adopting it to represent Vulcans cap by adding the garland. Thus getting a banded and garlanded cap.

I am still not sure how one determines that it does not serve as a dual purpose symbol (both Vulcan cap AND punch die)

But I am enjoying the discourse and research.

btw look here and read the detailed description by the BM. I just saw this and they seem to echo what I am suggesting (and TIF)

https://www.google.com/culturalinst...r-denarius-showing-juno-moneta/hgHWq91k6IPIug

"On the back of the coin are depicted tools associated with metalworking: in the centre an anvil, on the left a pair of tongs and on the right a hammer. Above the anvil is an uncertain object decorated with a wreath. It may be the smith's cap worn by Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and metalworking. Alternatively, the tools shown may be those of an ancient Roman coin-maker, if we interpret the 'cap' as an upper die about to be struck by the hammer onto a blank held by the tongs. The coin was made by the moneyer Titus Carisius."

 

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Just looking through CNG's sale records, I see that they've gone from describing it as die, then cap, then back to die. At least one of their catalogers in the past also went with this - "wreathed cap of Vulcan, resembling reverse die". This last description seems as good a hedge as any will probably be the one I go with when I finally get an example of my own.

 

Want to have fun. Look at this site. It even has a map of find spots. You will notice this link is for rrc-464.2

http://numismatics.org/crro/id/rrc-464.2

and is that a coin I see at the tip of the tongs?



http://www.ikmk.at/object.php?id=ID53372&lang=en&size=0&content=0&side=1

and is there a coin here in the tongs? Looks like a banded and garlanded cap that is also representing a punch die as a pair of tongs holds a coin.




http://digital.ucd.ie/view-media/ucdclm:187/multi/ucdclm:627#4629ffee-e4dc-4197-b89b-bf7d23b88613

I'm having fun. Don't know if anyone else is.

Certainly better than reading up on data migration into and out of the cloud and how to protect/recover from Ransomware attacks.

 

these folks supply a complete package.

You will note that someone included an English language tag which also cites an added(?) reference at the top.

 

I am so happy to hear that some of us are getting enjoyment out of our hobby. In truth, we may never know for certain what the intent of the coin designer was with that die/cap thing. Cynics among us will point out that a design with the tools of a blacksmith would not sell as well as if we called them tools of the mint. They also might ask, "Where's the hammer?" We may never know but it is fun to study and does no harm to speculate as long as we realize that we are not always going to be right.

 

a) The obverse is Juno Moneta, not Juno Ferraria.
b) The hammer is to the right of the anvil.

 

Like looking at Vulcan's / Hephaestus pics , I'll go for his cap pictured on the coin,
just my 2 cents.

 

My bad. It was flat on the last coin and I forgot it.

 

I agree with Doug and I am wary about fanciful descriptions, designed to make a coin type seem more desirable and pricier. Part of my 'fun' is in separating fact from fantasy.

I am going to assume that the anvil, the tongs and the hammer all allude to the minting of money. Juno Moneta is on the obverse and coins were minted in the temple of Juno Moneta. If the temple was a simple blacksmith shop, then I would agree that the symbols are meant to be the standard imagery of Vulcan. Conjecture, but a reasonable one I believe.

As for the garlanded cap/die/whatever it is.............well that is indeed a puzzle that we might never answer definitively. However, the Roman experts here are always musing over the brilliant way Romans used visual puns and conflated imagery to convey a message above and beyond the obvious. I am not sure why that idea does not find more supporters for this reverse.....that of a garlanded Vulcan cap also playing the role of a punch die.

Anyhooooo I appreciate all the viewpoints.

 

The moneyer who commissioned the design, the designer, the die engravers and the people who actually spent the coins might all have had different ideas about it too. Sometimes we have to love with ambiguity.

 

Ambiguity is where the "fun" often is in ancient numismatics - developing theories and arguments backed-up by evidence to argue one side or the other. In the end, no one but the designer may know what was intended by the (to us) ambiguous designs.

 

Agreed, but if Champollion had settled for ambiguity, we would today, know very little, about a lot.

Theories, arguments and examination are fun..............well, at least they are for me.