{"id":831,"date":"2026-05-12T16:52:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T15:52:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/hoards\/?p=831"},"modified":"2026-05-12T16:53:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T15:53:30","slug":"clipped-coins-unclipped-clues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/hoards\/2026\/05\/12\/clipped-coins-unclipped-clues\/","title":{"rendered":"Clipped coins, unclipped clues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"lead\">Silver coins with displaying various degrees of clipping (Photo: \u00a9 The Trustees of the British Museum).<\/p>\n<p>When a coin is clipped, some of the key features we normally rely on to quickly identify the coin have been removed. This includes the lettering around the edges &#8211; the legend &#8211; on the front of a coin that tells us who issued the coin and the mint mark on the back that tells us where it was made.<\/p>\n<p>So how do numismatists identify a coin when it is heavily clipped and the most obvious clues are missing?<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_837\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-837\" style=\"width: 444px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-837\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/hoards\/files\/2026\/05\/EUG-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"444\" height=\"296\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-837\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Heavily clipped siliqua of Eugenius (Photo: \u00a9 The Trustees of the British Museum).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Even when a siliqua is heavily clipped, there are sometimes still enough surviving details left to work out the ruler, type and date. The emperor\u2019s portrait on the front of a coin is almost always left intact after clipping and its features can sometimes assist in identification. If the emperor has a beard, for example, we know that the coin was issued either by Julian the Apostate (361-363 CE) or Eugenius (388-395 CE). We can then look at the reverse design to confirm the ruler, type and date. The style of the shoulder fringes \u2014 known as <em>ptergyes<\/em> \u2014 worn by the emperor can also help to distinguish where a coin was made and when it was produced. This detail is particularly useful for distinguishing the coins struck at Milan before and after 395 CE.<\/p>\n<p>The design on the back of the coin provides further clues. For the VIRTVS ROMANORVM issues produced at several places between 383 and 402 CE, the depiction of Roma (the divine personification of Rome) varies. Differences in the way Roma is seated, the type of seat she is sitting on, the style of her dress, and the design of her spear or sceptre allow us to distinguish these issues from one another.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_840\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-840\" style=\"width: 442px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-840\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/hoards\/files\/2026\/05\/213-honorius-example-shoulders.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"442\" height=\"254\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-840\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The style of the emperor&#8217;s <em>pteryges<\/em> and reverse design reveal that this clipped and broken coin was issued by Arcadius or Honorius at Milan between 395 and 402 C.E. (photo: \u00a9 The Trustees of the British Museum)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Silver coins with displaying various degrees of clipping (Photo: \u00a9 The Trustees of the British Museum). When a coin is clipped, some of the key &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/hoards\/2026\/05\/12\/clipped-coins-unclipped-clues\/\">Read&nbsp;more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83068,"featured_media":846,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[304923],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/hoards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/hoards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/hoards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/hoards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83068"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/hoards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=831"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/hoards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":853,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/hoards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831\/revisions\/853"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/hoards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/hoards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/hoards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/hoards\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}