Either way, it is important to clear up an issue that was described as an ‘unsolved mystery’ in the standard catalogue of Roman Imperial Coins issued in 1948 and has received relatively little attention since.įig 1. If the coins proved to be fakes, they would make a particularly interesting case study in antiquarian forgery if authentic, they would be of clear historical interest. The motivation for our study was that modern imaging and analytical techniques should be able to detect such treatment, especially when questionable coins are compared with genuine pieces of the period. Although no instance of rubbing in or gluing on of dirt or soil has been reported, as far as we know, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility. Historical forgers are known to have used artificial ageing methods, including abrasion to simulate wear and staining to give a patinated appearance (as discussed further below). Although this coin and others associated with it have long been regarded as eighteenth century fakes, we were surprised to see apparent superficial wear scratches and ‘earthen deposits’ (adhering matrix) that seemed to warrant further investigation. That work included publication of the first high-resolution colour photograph of a Sponsian coin from the collection of The Hunterian, University of Glasgow (reproduced in Fig 1). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.ĭata Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.įunding: PNP received a small grant of <£1K from the Royal Numismatic Society The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.Įvidence surrounding the possible historicity of the long disputed ‘emperor’ Sponsian was recently reviewed as part of a study of Rome’s third century crisis. Received: Accepted: AugPublished: November 23, 2022Ĭopyright: © 2022 Pearson et al. PLoS ONE 17(11):Įditor: Melania Di Fazio, Sapienza University of Rome: Universita degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza, ITALY Combining evidence from the coins with the historical record, we suggest he was most likely an army commander in the isolated Roman Province of Dacia during the military crisis of the 260s CE, and that his crudely manufactured coins supported a functioning monetary economy that persisted locally for an appreciable period.Ĭitation: Pearson PN, Botticelli M, Ericsson J, Olender J, Spruženiece L (2022) Authenticating coins of the ‘Roman emperor’ Sponsian. These observations force a re-evaluation of Sponsian as a historical personage. Superficial patches of soil minerals bound by authigenic cement and overlain by oxidation products indicate a history of prolonged burial then exhumation. Deep micro-abrasion patterns suggest extensive circulation-wear. Here we present non-destructive imaging and spectroscopic results that show features indicative of authenticity. They are very unlike regular Roman coins in style and manufacture, with various enigmatic features including bungled legends and historically mixed motifs, and have long been dismissed as poorly made forgeries. The ‘Roman emperor’ Sponsian is known only from an assemblage of coins allegedly found in Transylvania (Romania) in 1713.
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