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Description: | Possible lead tablet for making a silver cliche coin forgery (or possibly a curse tablet) containing the impression of a coin of the Emperor Valens (AD364-78).
The lead panel is roughly triangular in shape with two near-complete edges and one incomplete edge. The sheet is flat and has a circular hole in two corners; the third corner is missing. The sheet was originally found folded together and has since been opened.
Inside the folded sheet is the negative impression of the obverse from a Roman coin of Valens. The diameter of the impression is 18mm indicating that it is from a silver siliqua or a copper alloy nummus. When viewed from above the bust faces left and the letttering is reversed. The bust is diademed and draped. The legend field is extremely worn and unforunately no lettering can be read.
There is no evidence for an earlier fold that would have suggested that the lead was folded around a coin and then struck to gain the impression of obverse and reverse.
The fold in the lead as discovered by the finder cuts, seemingly intentionally, across the centre of the impression.
This is one of two tablets found together along with a folded blank lead sheet. The die is recorded on the Portable Antiquities Schemes database as LIN-57B091 and the lead sheet is recorded as LIN-5806B6 . The impression on the other lead tablet is from the same coin obverse and is also folded through the coin.
The nature of the finds and their folds has lead Sam Moorhead (Roman coin finds advisor, Portable Antiquities Scheme) to suggest that the objects are for making cliche coin forgeries or were possibly curse tablets used against the Emperor Valens. | Format: | text/html | License: | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ | Publisher: | The Portable Antiquities Scheme | Rights holder: | The Portable Antiquities Scheme | Subjects: | archaeology | Temporal: | 364
378 | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Creator: | Adam Daubney | Identifier: | http://www.finds.org.uk/database/artefac... | Language: | en-GB | Format: | text/html | Go to resource |
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