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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;+VGO.DVCKS, post: 7995533, member: 110504&quot;]I posted these less than a month ago, in [USER=44316]@Valentinian[/USER]&#039;s terrific thread about Constantine VII.&nbsp; ( <a href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/romanus-christopher-and-constantine-vii-913-959.384165/#post-7931740" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/romanus-christopher-and-constantine-vii-913-959.384165/#post-7931740">https://www.cointalk.com/threads/romanus-christopher-and-constantine-vii-913-959.384165/#post-7931740</a>. With particular thanks to [USER=84905]@Tejas[/USER] for his /your two fantastic, near-literally inspiring posts of the imitation in the same thread.)&nbsp; But, Nope, when it came to reposting it here, I couldn&#039;t hold out.&nbsp; Particularly as a complement to my post here about late Viking Age imitations of AEthelred II pennies.&nbsp; (Which, for those tuning in late, were thick on the ground in Scandinavia, thanks to AEthelred&#039;s danegelds.)</p><p>Here&#039;s my intentionally less than museum-quality example of a miliaresion of Basil II Bulgaroktonos and Constantine VII, issued 977-989.[ATTACH=full]1386980[/ATTACH]</p><p>This is the desccription from the dealer, Alfa Numismatics (who is highly recommended --I don&#039;t care; he&#039;s owed that much).</p><p>&quot;Byzantine Empire. Basil II Bulgaroktonos, with Constantine VIII. 976-1025. AR Miliaresion (20mm, 2.04g). Constantinople mint. ЄҺ TOVTω ҺICAT ЬASILЄI C CωҺST, cross crosslet set on pellet on four steps; X at center, • above crescent on shaft; to left, facing crowned busts of Basil and Constantine / + ЬASIL / C CωҺSTAҺ / ΠORFVROS / ΠISTOI ЬAS / RωMAIω, legend in five lines; decoration, +-, above and below. Sear 1810. Very Fine, green deposit.&quot;</p><p>(I can do &#039;Coin Greek,&#039; picking out proper nouns and titles.&nbsp; If anyone would care to provide full translations, you&#039;d get some serious gratitude.&nbsp; Likely nothing else, but....)</p><p>And here&#039;s an imitation from the extreme south of Kievan Rus&#039;, in or near Crimea.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1387002[/ATTACH]</p><p>This is the description from Numismatik Naumann (also recommended).</p><p>&quot;RUSSIA. Kievan Rus. Mstislav Vladimirovich Chrabriy. Prince of Tmutarakan (990-1024). Ae “Miliaresion”. Imitating a Constantinople mint AR Miliaresion of Basil II.</p><p>Obv: Cross potent on two steps; on either side, crowned and draped facing bust; crown with pendilia.</p><p>Rev: Pseudo-legend in four of five lines across field.&nbsp; Cf. Golenko 3 (for type).</p><p>Condition: Near very fine.&nbsp; Weight: 1.14 g.&nbsp; Diameter: 22 mm.&quot;</p><p>Funly, the imitation is a little broader than the obviously clipped prototype.&nbsp; And very evident billon, in contrast both to the good silver of the prototype, and the frank AE of later examples.&nbsp; Suggesting a relatively early issue --as [USER=84905]@Tejas[/USER] noted in one of his posts cited above.&nbsp; ...But, I promise you, compared to the prototype, the billon isn&#039;t much to write home about.</p><p>But I&#039;m really needing how, between the Scandinavian imitations of AEthelred II, and this Kievan Rus&#039; one of Basil II and Constantine VII, there are conspicuous, if obvious common themes.</p><p>The most salient being the celators&#039; willingness to forge ahead with illiterate renderings of the original legends.&nbsp; This is particularly resonant from here, where I routinely deal with my own respective but copious levels of illiteracy in Greek, Latin (running to coin legends), and French (mostly squinting out journal articles).</p><p>Complementing a still broader dynamic of the Viking Age, both early and late: the willingness to actively respond to whatever cultural milieu these folks found themselves in.&nbsp; The gradual Slavification of the Kievan Rus&#039; provides a resonant, nearly contemporaneous parallel to the Francification of the Normans, on the opposite side of the continent ...along with the Anglification of the Danes in the Danelaw and Northumbria /York over the course of the 11th and 12th centuries.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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