Featured The legend (?) of SPONSIANUS

WOW!!! Thanks so much for sharing this. Kudos to Dr Ericsson et al!

 

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Many tanks for your work @Nefarius Purpus . You're a king !

 

Nefarius Purpus Rex... I rather like that. Yes, that could work...

 

the diameter by the way is exact for a genuine Republican Minucia 3 denarius to have been used as reverse hub

 

An update on the Sponsian mystery for those who are interested.

Münsterberg (1923 Tfl. 264) in fact photographed three, two from the Vienna Cabinet acquired in 1713 and one that turned up in 1770 at a monastery in Austria. They all appear to be cast from moulds made from the same hubs, as does the one that made its way to Glasgow



The Vienna ones were ‘found’ in Transylvania in 1713 (or so the story goes, according to a note by Heraeus who curated the Vienna collection at the time and reported by Münsterberg) along with several ‘barbarous’ gold pieces with various faux Republican and Imperial type designs and a possibly genuine Alexander the Great coin (which pieces present puzzles of their own). It seems the Vienna Cabinet coins were part of a larger group that was dispersed in 1713 into several major collections.

One of the Sponsians found its way into the collection of Baron Samuel von Brukenthal who was Governor of Transylvania between 1774 and 1787 and it was first illustrated by Naumann (1783). This is an oddity because, as I pointed out in a posting above, it appears to be made from different obverse and reverse hubs, unless the drawing is quite inaccurate, which it may be.



This may or may not be the same specimen illustrated by Akerman (1834)(perhaps inaccurately again from Neumann’s illustration, exaggerating the gap between IMP and SPONSIANI for instance and straightening legs etc., changing outline and there is no blocky column base).



Another puzzle is that the one illustrated by Cohen (1860 and 1892) is not the same as Neumann’s specimen (as Münsterberg seems to suggest it is) unless one or both illustrations are very inaccurate. In fact it does not appear to be an exact match for any of the others photographed above (look for instance at the beading down the column which is straight, not bowed). Cohen also mentions the existence of a silver specimen although the one in his catalogue is gold like the rest.



Although Sponsian was listed in RIC and described as an ‘unsolved mystery’, and several historians have mentioned him as a possible usurper at around the time of Philip, Cohen and Munsterberg thought they were fakes, as do various other specialists. I have decided to bring the evidence together and may write a formal summary backed up by a close examination of the Glasgow piece when lockdown allows to try to put the issue to rest. It is an interesting puzzle one way or the other and I am trying to keep an open mind until all the evidence is in.

 

I am pleased to say that the results of our investigation of the Glasgow coin and associated pieces will be published next week in the open access journal PLOS One. I will post a link to the article here at 2 pm Eastern Time on Wednesday 23rd November, and I'd be happy to field any questions from members of this forum after that!

 

Looking forward to this article! Just tossing out a blind guess… these coins look like modern (still hundreds of years old) creations. They look like something somebody would make to create a coin of a little known usurper mentioned briefly in sources. Just my guess based on… little information.

 

The Sponsian paper is now published free open access here. Enjoy!

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0274285

We think the Sponsian coins and related pieces are authentic products of antiquity, for reasons given in the paper.

We also provide a hypothesis for the historical Sponsian as an imperator in Dacia in the 260s to early 270s when the province became cut-off at the time of Gallienus and before it was abandoned and evacuated by Aurelian.

The Sponsian coin has been put on display at The Hunterian, a museum in Glasgow for the first time, for those of you who might want to see it:
https://www.gla.ac.uk/hunterian/visit/exhibitions/changingdisplays/sponsian/

Another is on public display at the Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu, Romania
http://www.brukenthalmuseum.ro/index_en.html

Both museums have amazing coin collections and well worth a visit if you can.

You can read more about the Third Century crisis and how Sponsian might fit in to the mayhem in my new book The Roman Empire in Crisis, 248-260

https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/The-Roman-Empire-in-Crisis-248260-Hardback/p/20486

 

That is indeed what they look like, but we think looks deceive in this case...

 

All I can say is WOW

 

This article showed up in my Facebook feed this afternoon.
https://www.heritagedaily.com/2022/11/roman-coin-reveals-long-lost-roman-emperor/145321?amp

 

Not everyone is fully on board, apparently:
“They’ve gone full fantasy,” said Richard Abdy, the curator of Roman and iron age coins at the British Museum. “It’s circular evidence. They’re saying because of the coin there’s the person, and the person therefore must have made the coin.”

https://www.theguardian.com/science...fake-emperor-sponsian-was-real-say-scientists

 

Thanks for your good work Paul and thanks also to @Ocatarinetabellatchitchix
to start the thread. Sadly dominic is no posting here but i email him with the link of new srticle

 

Did I read the report correctly? A Gordian III and Philip were also analyzed for comparative purposes and these are the coins that were used? Both are either fake or barbarous, neither are official issues of any Roman mint.

you also conclude that the coins are cast, which is fairly apparent in the photo. None of the supposedly real coins of Bonosus, Saturninus, Domitian II etc are cast. No usurper of any merit would ever cast his coinage. Casting was left to forgers.

I’m confused.

 

They used two different Gordian and Philip coins from the collection, not the ones pictured. At least I think.

 

After reading the paper I have to agree with Abdy. The methodology is careful, the interpretations a bit wild but the gravest mistake (which is not their fault) is that clearly Pearson et al are not numismatists. At last not ones who know this particular era in coinage very well. They really should have run it by experts before publishing as many here will instantly recognize these as contemporary counterfeits of (likely) Indian provenance.

Rasiel

 

Are you saying that the Sponsian is a modern Indian fake from the 18th century? I wasn’t aware they were in business back then

 

A most interesting thread. I just read an article on the coins found of him.

 

Grrr... lost my post. Hopefully it won't show up repeated later but what I meant was that these were ancient copies often attributed to an Indian origin based on often being found over there. It is probable that this coin was made closer to Roman borders and made for the same reason as the rest of the barbarous coinage of the day: to supplement a shortage of imperial currency for local/regional usage.

Here is a link that shows a bunch of other gold barbarous imitations. In my opinion when viewed as a whole this demonstrates that the Sponsian isn't all that remarkable beyond the relative legibility of the legend.

https://www.coryssa.org/index.php/s.../299/page/0/period/roman_emperor/denom/Aureus

Rasiel

 

I’d be interested to see close ups of encrustations on undoubtedly genuine gold coins from several different centuries for comparison.