The artistic style doesn't look Roman, nor does it look like the bronze barbarous radiates struck in Gaul imitating Roman coins.
What it looks like is this:
4.7g, 19.5mmThis is a gold aureus. It is from Andrei Sergeev's collection and currently in the State Historical Museum in Moscow. The photo is from the book Barbarian Coins on the Territory Between the Balkans and Central Asia (Moscow 2012; it is coin #224). It is with other coins found 'between the Balkans and the Dnepr basin'.
This coin has the obverse inscription ZZNZZTWZ ... ONIIƧWZNƧ.
Sergeev's catalog includes four other Ukrainian gold aurei from the same period. They are called Roman imitations, and perhaps they are, but perhaps they are not. They sometimes have pseudo-Roman inscriptions like IMPM... AXMINV.
2.7g, 18mmHere is a silver coin find, said to have been found on the territory of western Ukraine, Khmelnytsky region near the Dnister river. This is about 500 km from Translyvania where the "Sponsian" coin was found. According to Vital Sidarovich, this type has also been found in south-west Belarus, in the area of the Wielbark culture. Often these types imitate Roman emperors, but this one doesn't seem to.
It is not clear if the inscriptions are portraits are always imitations of things seen on Roman coins. There is no reason they couldn't depict local chieftans.
Elsewhere, Barry Murphy has suggested the Sponsian coin is a cast imitiation. I haven't inspected it personally, but it looks struck, but corroded which gives it a cast look.
2 comments:
I suggest you read Paul Pearson's article [https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0274285] in its entirety - he makes an excellent case.
Regarding the casting, I really wish I could see the coin up close. Sometimes with poor quality gold there are bubbles of non-noble metals that corrode away, leaving a cast appearance.
Pearson believes the coins are Dacian. Based on style I think slightly further East, but it doesn't matter. We agree on the time period.
A user on a coin forum, Steppenfool, pointed out that the inscription IMP SPONSIAN looks a great deal like GORDIANVS PIVS FEL AVG, and SPONSIAN appears on the right side of the coin, where the titles usually are, rather than the left side, where the name usually is.
The coin could also be an 18th century fake. I have suspicions about another of Hunter's coins. The style and the name seem unlikely for an early forger to know. So it is likely real. Yet I have doubts.
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