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Figure of the month: 1713

News Arnulf Hinkel, financial journalist – 01.04.2023

A specially minted gold coin bearing the effigy of an emperor, monarch, king, or other high dignitary, has always served to underscore a ruler’s importance. It is no different today with the new King of England, Charles III, than it was in 560 BC when the King of Lydia introduced the first standardised gold coin as a supra-regional means of payment.

Fake or fact: the emperor who may never have existed

Historians have always been able to determine a gold coin’s period of issue based on its specific minting, determined by a particular ruler. This changed in 1713, when two gold coins were found with the name and likeness of  Roman emperor Sponsanius, whom historians had previously never heard of. A lengthy dispute broke out among scholars as to whether the coins were forgeries or not, until the French numismatist Henry Cohen – an absolute authority in this field at the time – finally classified the coins as poorly crafted forgeries in the 19th century, thus putting an end to the scholarly dispute. For the time being, that is.

Recent research has raised more than just doubts

In a scientific article published by the multidisciplinary online journal “Public Library of Science”, University College London researchers revealed the results of their latest examination of the Sponsanius gold coins in November 2022. Theirs is an entirely different conclusion than that of Henry Cohen. By analysing the gold coins with state-of-the-art microscopes, they claim to have proven that the coins were actually in circulation for a long period and must have been buried in the ground for hundreds of years. Based on the wear patterns, the researchers date the gold coins in antiquity, where Sponsanius may have briefly held the highest Roman office in the third century.

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