![]() Moreover, even in the lands of barbarians, they were commonly used as a means of payment.ĭr. According to Dymowski, the value of one denarius was higher than the daily salary of a first century legionary. They were considered valuable by locals because of metal they were made from. On the eastern periphery of the Roman Empire, ranging from eastern Germany through Poland and Ukraine to western Russia, Roman denarii were widely used. They were silver-plated or came from a metal alloy, which looked like silver. Myzgin, told the PAP agency that some of these coins were counterfeits. Dymowski from Warsaw University, who conducts research in this area together with dr. Hundreds of thousands of Roman denarii were found in the territories, which were inhabited by the Goths and Vandals at the beginning of our era. Such information has been provided by the First News magazine on its website. Thanks to their research, they came to the conclusion that the coins do not come from the Roman Empire, as it has been thought so far, but were faked. Rome’s contacts with Africa and Far EastĪrchaeologists from Warsaw University have analyzed Roman coins found in Poland, Ukraine and Belarus.™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. “For understanding the dying days of Roman power in the Province of Dacia, and the history of Romania, he is potentially more significant, but our results have just been published and the academic debate is just beginning.” He said that the researchers wanted to start a conversation with Roman historians and archaeologists to try and test their hypothesis about Sponsian. Pearson, however, insisted the researchers had reached “a clear-cut conclusion” about the authenticity of the coins, telling CNN in an email: “For the grand history of Rome, Sponsian is little more than a historical footnote – but a footnote that should nevertheless be reinstated!” ![]() “This whole theory - that the coin is genuine - is both unscientific and unfounded,” he added.ĭame Mary Beard, the acclaimed scholar of Ancient Rome and professor of classics at Cambridge University, wrote in a blog post published by the Times Literary Supplement that “there is still very powerful evidence that they are fakes,” going on to list a number of issues surrounding their crafting and design. “Like everyone in the numismatic world, I strongly believe this coin to be a modern forgery,” Jerome Mairat, curator of the Heberden Coin Room in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, told CNN. The researchers added that while “nothing can be known about him for certain,” the coins analyzed “provide clues as to his possible place in history.”ĭespite the study’s findings, some experts, including in the field of numismatics - the study or collection of currency - still believe the coin to be fake. The Sponsian coinage series was used to pay senior soldiers and officials, who kept them as a store of wealth, proposed the researchers.įrom the findings, it “would appear to be that Sponsian should be rehabilitated as a historical personage,” the study concluded. Sponsian never controlled an official mint or ruled Rome, said the researchers, but possibly became a local commander-in-chief who took charge during a period of chaos and civil war to protect the population of Dacia. The province of Dacia, which was cut off from the rest of the Roman empire in around 260 AD, was a region prized for its gold mines and mineral resources, according to UCL.
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