Notae Numismaticae - Zapiski Numizmatyczne (14.2019)

THE PROBLEM OF THE PRESENCE OF BARBARIAN IMITATIONS...

access to the original coins that nine of these coins were based on - it was not even
possible to gain access to photographs of these coins - for the remaining 37 one can
show the combination of dies in more than 54% of the cases. Eight denarii - that is,
not quite half of the 20 coins for which combinations of dies have been identified -
are coins found in hoards.
Four imitative denarii found on Polish lands are part of large die-chains within
which no fewer than ten coins from finds can be indicated, or coins with an unknown
provenance held in museum collections. First of all, the imitative denarius from
the hoard from Gierłoż (Cat. no. 537) was attributed by K. Stribrny to the SALVS
AVGVSTI Group (SAG),38 which he himself had distinguished and which includes
over 23 coins from 2 northern German hoards (Laatzen and Lashorst) and two coins
from the Kecel II hoard from Hungary. The materials published by O. Anokhin have
made it possible to add two more denarii found in Ukraine to the SAG die-chain.39
Secondly, a denarius from a hoard from Tokary (Cat. no. 43) and a denarius found
by itself near Inowrocław (Cat. no. 16), together with at least 44 other denarii, make
up part of the CERES Group.40 The coins that have been assigned to this die-chain -
besides those from Poland - have been found in Ukraine (no less than 38 coins) and
in Gotland (2 coins). Thirdly, another denarius found near Inowrocław, this time in
a small hoard (Cat. no. 11), is part of a die-chain that, while it has been described,41
has not yet been given a name in the subject literature - at the present moment,
this die-chain includes 13 coins. Besides the coin from Poland, this die-chain
includes one coin from the Kecel II hoard mentioned above, another denarius with
an unknown provenance from the collections of the Hungarian National Museum
in Budapest, and ten coins from Ukrainian finds42 (see “Schemes of die-links”,
added to the present article). As part of this die-chain, as many as eight coins were
struck with a reverse die modeled after the reverse of a Roman coin, most likely
a denarius from an issue of Severus Alexander (222 23 5),43 one showing a standing
Venus and the legend VENVS VICTRIX. For this reason, continuing the naming
tradition introduced by K. Stribrny, we will call this newly differentiated die-chain
the VENVS VICTRIX Group.

37 The numbers provided in the text correspond to the numbers under which the imitations are indicated in
the “Catalogue of imitative Roman Imperial denarii from Polish finds” that is appended to this article.
38 STRIBRNY 2003: 51-55 (the scheme of die-links is shown on p. 52).
39 DYMOWSKI 2019: 187, 189.
40 Ibidem'. 190-200 and pl. 29 (here one can also find the scheme of die-links). The number of coins from
Ukrainian finds has been estimated based on the number of coin types recorded by Anokhin.
41 Ibidem'. 187.
42 The die combinations of coins from Ukrainian finds were described by O. Anokhin on his Internet website
(ANOKHIN 2018).
43 I am deeply grateful to Prof. Lennart Lind from the University of Stockholm for calling my attention to
the supposed prototype of the described reverse.

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