The mysterious SISCIA symbols: a new theory (?)

A few months ago, I read with attention an interesting article in French in the Bulletin numismatique. Here is a resume of the new theory about the mysterious Siscia mint’s symbols. Between 348-350 AD, these strange symbols appeared on Siscia's nummi FEL TEMP REPARATIO, first in the field of the reverse for a short issue (Constans, RIC 247), then in the exergue, in different places (beginning, end or penultimate character). The R.I.C. indicates 5 types of symbols, each corresponding to an officinae (with some exceptions), while Alföldi proposes a broader nomenclature, taking into account variants of symbols:




Examination of hundreds of examples of these references, based on the R.I.C. symbol nomenclature, shows that the symbol-officinae relationship is clearly established for 93% of the specimens. Only 7% of coins have a symbol that does not correspond to their officinaes. It can be seen in this analysis that the various officinaes had fairly comparable production volumes overall, to within more or less 10%. On the other hand, the volumes of the different symbols present a greater dispersion, with a range of plus or minus 20%. The symbol 3 only appears in the 3rd officinae, without exception, but this may be due to a sample size that is too small.


RIC 247 var., officinae 3 but symbol of off. 1


So how can these symbols be interpreted ?

• They evoke lowercase Greek letters, sometimes inverted (therefore engraved the right way round on the dies): zeta (symbol off. 1), eta inverted (symbol off. 2), lambda inverted (symbol off. 3), tau inverted (symbol off. 4), digamma (symbol off. 5).

• They do not correspond to issues phases: the same symbols are found in the field, or exergue in the first, penultimate or last position, in the different issues.

Two hypotheses can be put forward:

• Either it is a coded issue, like the AEQVITI / AEQVIT / EQVITI issues from the Rome and Ticinum mint for Probus.

• Either they are marks of engravers, which would constitute a unique case in Roman coinage.

The first hypothesis does not seem very credible, because the coded issues did not suffer from any exception: each officinae corresponded to a single letter.

The second seems plausible: the exceptions would be the mark of the occasional help provided by the engraver from one officinae to another officinae, a practice commonly observed in Roman coinage, and the differences in volume by symbol would be explained by an activity variable of the engravers, during these two years of production.

So what do you think of this new (?) theory ?

 

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That sounds like an interesting article and thank you for writing a summary in English!

I have but one coin from this series, with RIC symbol 5 in the exergue:



Constantius II, AD 337-361.
Roman Æ 3 (1/4 maiorina?), 2.36 g, 18.7 mm, 11 h.
Siscia, AD 348-49, fifth officina.
Obv: D N CONSTAN-TIVS P F AVG, pearl-diademed, draped and cuirassed bust, right.
Rev: FEL TEMP REPARATIO, Phoenix, nimbate, standing right on mound of rocks; ЄSIS(symbol 5) in exergue.
Refs: RIC viii p. 366, 240; LRBC II 1133; RCV 18250; Cohen 58.

 

I don't really collect that period and have no real expertise in this issue, but the second is the theory I'd favor.

Now I kind of want one of these.

 

I wonder how much stylistic variation (presumably due to different engravers) we see on these coins ? To support this theory I think we'd need to see reverse die stylistic variation that correlates to symbol usage, and that is consistent in cases where there are unusual symbol-officina pairings.

It doesn't "feel right" to me as a theory - that engravers would be allowed to express themselves in this way, but it'd certainly be interesting if there was evidence to support it.

 

^ This was my thought too. Does the paper go into those details? I would think it would be relatively easy to check because the phoenix style can vary quite a lot.

Here's my symbol 3:


The note I had on the coin was that the symbols corresponded to letters in the local Siscian alphabet, citing @dougsmit. Where does that idea come from?

 

Could you perhaps link to the article if possible?

 

BSIS - Symbol 2
exe

field


DSIS - Symbol 4
field


DSIS - Symbol 4*
field


ASIS - Symbol 4*


Martin

 

The article is here: pp 32-33.

https://www.bulletin-numismatique.fr/bn/pdf/bn216.pdf

 

I looked at some of the coins in nummus database (which is what the article was based on too), and at first glance I'm not really seeing support for this theory.

I only looked at the large galley types, RIC 199-207, since they are the largest FEL TEMPs and I expected the symbols to be clearer as well as the large module to allow for more stylistic variation. I'd started looking at the smaller phoenix-on-globe type, but those suffered on both points (too small - symbols often unclear, and simple reverse design without much variation).

This is hardly definitive from a small sample, but here are a few that make me question the theory.



The coins on each row have the same symbol and per the theory should therefore be the work of the same engraver, and (I'm assuming) should therefore be stylistically similar, whereas to me there's enough stylistic variation to make me question it.

Look for examples at coins 2 vs 3 which have same symbol and should be similar, but really aren't, as opposed to 3 vs 5 (different symbols, but same officina) which appear very close.

 

Oc., some symbols are exactly the same as Cyrillic alphabet...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrillic_script

 

Pretty sure Cyrillic letters are about 400 years newer than these symbols

 

Unless Glagolitic Greek -- from which is derived the Cyrillic alphabet -- took some of their characters from the Siscian script.

 

If the hypothesis fails the style test (as @Heliodromus suggests it does), can we think of something else the symbols might stand for? It would have to be something that correlates well but not perfectly with officina, and which would be useful to record on the coins.

One possibility: presumably there was a mint official in charge of each officina. But maybe some of them occasionally did double (or triple or quadruple...) duty when an officina was lacking its chief official for some reason. Then the symbols could stand for the particular official ultimately responsible for producing the coin. This would be useful to keep track of, since if something went wrong not only could you blame the right office, but also the right person.

I can imagine the sort of situation that led to instituting such a system:

The governor: "Marcus, the fifth officina's product has been found to have reduced silver content. This is absolutely unacceptable. Please explain yourself!"
Marcus: "My humble apologies, governor, but I'm quite certain the responsibility for this heinous oversight was not mine. Do you recall when Gaius Publilius was filling in for me during my bout of dysentery? I always suspected he was skimming off some metal! "​

Any other ideas?