Numismatics as problem-solving

About a week or so in my work at BMC Collections on Bryn Mawr's coins, I came across a coin with a perplexing inscription. The undergrad also working with the coins pointed out that the early identification of the coin as a 10th c. Byzantine coin was absurd. From the portraiture it was clearly late Roman, but provincial-- the inscription was in Greek. At the time we set it aside, but during the course of the week I came across a coin that elucidated the reverse inscription-- our "Byzantine" coin was from Tarsus.

After this discovery, I felt sure I could identify the coin-- I had the reverse, now only the obverse eluded me, and as such the identification of the emperor depicted in his radiate crown. I worked on it for quite a while, desperately trying every transliteration of the Greek to determine to which emperor the obverse description referred.

Eventually, Dennis came up to the lab for some of my boss' famous extra-strong coffee, and got excited about the hunt, as well. The thing about coin identification is that it feels somewhat like solving a mystery or going on a treasure hunt-- the clues are there, and the answers seem only a synaptic connection away. The inscription began with the clear letters "AVKAIG(gamma)." I had guessed that the AV KAI was a Greek transliteration of the Latin abbreviation for Augustus Caesar, which was a good start. The inscription begins several provincial issues of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, for example at Hadrianopolis in Thrace. But looking at these issues, Dennis noticed that often "AV" was written "AVTOK," and with characteristic ingenuity he realized this must be an abbreviation for "autokratos," which would be the Greek equivalent of the Latin "IMP" for "imperator," so commonly beginning Latin imperial obverse inscriptions. That the upsilon was behaving like a Roman V was a bit of a concern, but we chalked it up to being probably a characteristic of the location and the date.

With that question answered, we focused on the rest of the inscription, letters not as clear. The next letter appeared to be either a gamma or a lambda, and further along appeared "OVIBION" I had already searched Wildwinds for coins with such inscription, or emperors with any combination of those letters in his name. We searched for Lucius Vibius and Caius Vibius, ignoring the inexplicable "O" for the time being. We found Caius Vibius Trebonianus Gallus, and detirmined that this must be our emperor. Upon closer inspection we could now make out the letters "ALL" further along in the inscription, confirming our analysis. We still hadn't figured out that "O," but at this point I, who had been at the question longer, was ready to let it rest for another time, being ready for lunch. Dennis, still excited by the hunt, realized triumphantly through his background in linguistics that the Greeks transliterated the Roman "w" sound with the characters omicron upsilon, "OV," because they had no letter that equaled it. A firm identification is a satisfying end to such a mystery, and it allowed us to go to lunch (finally).

I wish I could show a picture of the coin, which is actually pretty cool looking. Here are two similar examples, also from Cilicia, from the principate of Trebonianus Gallus: example 1, example 2. A Roman example is found in the Wikipedia article linked above.

A great deal of satisfaction comes from working out a mystery like this, which is part of the great fun of Numismatics. I do not do the excitement of the journey or the discovery justice above, for which I apologize; I wish more people got a chance to study ancient coins, and could experience it for themselves.