How to identify a Roman coin
Description: A short video from our curator over on TikTok (Kent Archaeological Society) showing how to identify a Roman coin, using a replica Sestertius of Domitian who was Roman emperor from 81 - 96 AD.
Transcript: [Music] have you ever wondered how archaeologists and Museum curators identify Roman coins so here's a good example this is a cus of the Emperor demission who is Emperor between 81 and 96 ad uh becoming Emperor shortly after the death of Titus we know that this is a coin of di Mission because it has his royal title around the outer edge so it would be imp ha uh kesar being Caesar demission Augustus and then he has a whole load of postnominal titles about being the father of the emperor uh the Empire uh how he'd conquered Germania uh and so forth then on the other side we have this so This Sous is a FID exi uh reverse type or basically a loyalty of the army reverse type so it shows demission here um in his military uniform uh sitting on or standing on top of a aestus which is this uh platform that you can see here standing in front of three soldiers uh one of which holds a shield one which holds Milla and then another shield and you have these letters here which is s and then C which stands for senatus consulto um or by decree of the Senate so even though the emperor was in charge uh they still played the idea that the Senate held power and uh was governing the role of the emperor even though that wasn't the case and then in the bottom you have FID exer which is loyalty of the army so this allows us to really easily date this coin so this would have been minted in Rome around 91 ad and we can do this for most Roman coins they will have a very recognizable reverse type so even if the front of the coin is completely illegible which many coins and archaological sites will be if the reverse type if the reverse is clear we can usually identify them and same the other way around if the reverse is pretty rubbish um the in but if we can see the inscription or we can see the bust we can identify most Roman coins so that's just a quick rundown of how archaeologists like myself identify Roman coins on site and coins are really important for dating evidence like I said the original of this would have been dated in would have been minted in Rome in 91 ad so any Associated Pottery or if this was found within a feature like a ditch we would know that that ditch must have been created um either just prior to or during 91 ad because the coin had to have been minted before it ended up in the soil so hope you find that of interest and uh do give us a like a share and a follow for more
