ROMAN REPUBLICAN DIE PROJECT UPDATE

 

Another batch of Roman republican coin types has just been released to the Roman Republican Die Project (RRDP). The new release significantly expands the time period of issues that have been processed, since it includes early republican didrachms, as well as late republican aurei of Octavian and Antony.

The didrachm RRC 15/1 had already been processed in RRDP but was revised as part of the current release so that all specimens in CRRO have now been analyzed and appear in the die pages.

 
ANS 1969.83.35. Didrachm, RRC 22/1 (265-242 BCE). 6.54g. Gift of E.R. Miles. Control marks: Club/TT.

This release includes issues that were processed with the assistance of students at Sapienza Università di Roma as part of an internship supervised by Lucia Carbone, Andrew M. Burnett Associate Curator of Roman Numismatics. The subtypes of RRC 366/1 were transcribed by Isobel Wilkes (366/1a) and Micol Mazzoli (366/1b and 366/1c). Crawford distinguished the three subtypes based on the control marks: obverse symbol (366/1a), obverse letter flanked by dots (366/1b), and reverse letter usually followed by a dot (366/1c). For 366/1a, Michael Crawford lists 27 control symbols (RRC, Table XXXI). Richard Schaefer, however, identified only 23 dies, with one additional die provided by CRRO specimens for a total of 24. The RRDP dies do not include the comb, spear, or thyrsus listed by Crawford. It is likely these three symbols, the first of which Crawford only knew from Ernest Babelon (Annia 2), were actually confused with other symbols. The dies identified as spear and thyrsus could have been worn specimens of the arrow or sword in scabbard, while the symbol Babelon identified as a comb could have been the syrinx. For 366/1b, Schaefer has identified a die with each letter of the Latin alphabet, except H. For 366/1c, Crawford only knew of two reverse dies, with letters A (no dot) and B (with dot). Schaefer has added a third die with the letter C followed by a dot, known only from a single specimen.

 
ANS 1899.999.12. Denarius, RRC 313/1b (106 BCE). 3.86g. Obverse control mark: ·I.

To read the complete article, see:
More Republican Issues Added to RRDP (https://numismatics.org/pocketchange/more-republican-issues-added-to-rrdp/)

To visit the Roman Republican Die Project (RRDP), see:
Roman Republican Die Project (https://numismatics.org/rrdp/)

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