Tiny Ancient ?

Greetings. I could not read any letter in this bronze coin. It weighs 2.41 g. Diameter is 13 mm. Can you please help me identify it. Thanks.. Charles

 

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have a bit of fun identifying it yourself.......look up late Roman monograms pictures and you'll find it there. We will happily ID it for you, but you may enjoy the search?? ps. not meant to be sarcastic....type into google 'monogram - forum ancient coins'

 

Let us know what you think it may be......I have had a look myself, its quite fun. I have some ideas, but its not easy.....but
We'll have fun getting there.....

 

Dude, if I knew => I'd tell ya

 

Its a coin of Justin II, with his monogram on the obverse. Its a 5 nummi coin as indicated by the epsilon on the reverse. Mint, most likely Constantinople.

 

it it justin ii?

ooppss...VK answered while i was typing. i'm impressed i got it right.

 

While I agree with VK's ID, this monogram is one I have not been able to decipher to my satisfaction. Usually after someone points out the answer you can find the letters that make up the name in the monogram but I can't find Justin here. I have no idea what meaning to assign to the phi and ligate ou at the top. I see N and T in the monogram but other letters as well. Sear quotes several earlier references (including BMC) as having assigned the coin to Justinian but I don't see where they got that one either. I have not seen the explanation of how the move ti a Justin II ID was made. I saw one listing claiming the monogram was made up of IUSTINAI KAI SO ISAF but I have to admit my imagination falls way short of seeing that. It at least explains the K. Coins with oficina numbers A through delta (as the OP) are assigned to Constantinople while other mints used something else there like a city initial or a cross for Antioch as shown below. My example here also replaces monogram 8 of the OP coin with monogram 9 which reverses the positions of the phi and the OV ligature. Significance??? There is a lot to study in Byzantine but the OP coin is pretty safely, at least for now, as given by VK.

 

Thanks a lot. So I had to look into a Byzantine and not a Roman monogram site . Then , on the reverse of Dougs' coin there is a cross to the right of the Epsilon letter. I can not identify the figure on the right side of my coin's Epsilon.
Charles

 

It looks like a Delta to me.

 

At the time your coin was made, the mint at Constantinople had four workshops or teams producing the coins. Delta means your coin was made by the fourth shop.