The E-Sylum:  Volume 8, Number 44, October 16, 2005, Article 12

MORE ON THE DOMITIANUS DISCOVERY

Arthur Shippee forwarded a link from the Explorator newsletter
to a new article on the recently discovered Domitianus coin:

"Forget stone, a discovery of a Roman coin in Britain proves
history is set in bronze and silver.

During the chaos and confusion of the third century A.D., amid
widespread disease, famine, and barbarian invasions, a brazen
upstart seizes control of a breakaway state within the Roman
Empire. He proclaims himself emperor only to disappear days
later, his life and story lost, save for only the briefest of remarks
in two fragmentary and unreliable sources. Then, an amateur
treasure hunter scanning the green fields of Oxfordshire with a
metal detector chances upon a small clay pot filled with more
than 5,000 ancient Roman coins. A British Museum archaeologist
brushing away centuries of corrosion and carefully picking apart
bronze and silver pieces, discovers one exceedingly strange coin.
Among the thousands of unremarkable ones, this coin carries an
unfamiliar bearded face, a perplexing name, Domitianus, and
most strikingly, the three letters IMP, short for imperator, or
emperor.

Suddenly, the hunt was on for another coin, this one found not
buried in the ground, but buried in the archives of a small provincial
museum in southern France. The French coin, dug up in 1900,
was deemed worthless at the time, a modern counterfeit depicting
what was surely a made up emperor. Amazingly, the portrait on
the supposed fake matches the strange coin in the British Museum,
as does the image on the reverse side. Small characteristic markings
provide the final confirmation; both coins had been struck from the
same die or stamp. The French coin is not a fake, and the bearded
man, not an imposter, but a lost emperor."

"As the story reached the press, the coin became source of
national pride. The British paper The Times printed a picture
of the coin with the caption "Is this Britain's Lost Emperor?"
Archaeologists and historians were quick to temper some of
the sensationalism, noting that it was highly unlikely that
Domitianus, who had probably been confined to a region in
southwest Germany near the Danube, had ever even seen
Britain, and that the coin had made its way to Oxfordshire
via trade routes or troop movements. Even so, the discovery
of the coin created a buzz throughout academic circles in Britain.
Christopher Howgego, the curator of ancient coins at the
Ashmolean, told reporters that, "the coin is one of the most
interesting Roman objects ever found in Britain."

To read the complete article, see: Full Story

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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