![]() The Sponsian coins are “extremely” rare, he says, with only four depicting him known to exist today. Both of us were intrigued by what appeared to be wear scratches on the surface and dirt in the crevices among the lettering, so we decided to use modern scientific methods to decide if the coin really was fake or perhaps was authentic from the ancient world, despite being so unusual.” “I discovered one of the coins was in The Hunterian museum in Glasgow and asked the curator of coins and medals, Jesper Ericsson, for a photo for the book, as only grainy black-and-white images were available. Photo: The Hunterian, University of Glasgow Professor Paul N Pearson, UCL, left, and Jesper Ericsson, The Hunterian, University of Glasgow look at the Sponsian gold coin under a microscope. “I came across the story of the 'fake emperor' Sponsian while researching this - ‘fake’ because he is known only from coins that were pronounced fakes in the 1860s and by every specialist since. ![]() “The empire suffered a series of escalation disasters until it broke into warring chunks around 259-260 AD,” Pearson tells The National. His book, The Roman Empire in Crisis, 248–260: When the Gods Abandoned Rome, spans a period of time when the Roman empire was overrun with civil strife and rebellion, as successive leaders attempted to seize power for themselves, only to be murdered and overthrown. “During the first covid lockdown, I decided to write a new history of the Third Century crisis in the Roman empire, which began with a viral pandemic in 248 AD and was a time of anxiety, economic decline, inflation, political instability and war, so seemed grimly appropriate.” Professor Paul N Pearson, professorial research associate at UCL's Earth Sciences department, who led the project, says it began during the first Covid lockdown in 2020. However, a new study on four ancient gold coins from The Hunterian collection at the University of Glasgow and the Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu, Romania, has revealed that not only were the coins authentic, but they shed light on an obscure figure, and his role in the Crisis of the Third Century. Unearthed in 1713, the coins depicted him as an emperor - but in the absence of other information, the unconventional coins were widely dismissed as forgeries. For three centuries, the Roman leader Sponsian, who was first discovered on a set of coins found in Transylvania, was believed to be fake. ![]()
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