Mystery Roman Bronze [решено]

Hi everyone. I'm new here and only now started catalogingmy collection on Numista, so hopefully I'm posting this correctly:

This is a recent acquisition  which has stumped me.

A bronze coin, 25.4mm in diameter. I'm thinking it's a dupondius or AS, but beyond that I can't make an educated guess. 

Some remarks:
- Counter mark on the obverse
- Nothing of note on the edges aside that they are worn smooth
-  Figure appears to bear a radiant crown.
- Don't have a scale, but I would guess it's in the 5-7 gram range.
- Female figure on the reverse, with some barely legible lettering, possibly holding a cornucopia.

Hopefully that helped, this stumped me so far. 

Welcome to the site.

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Gotcha.

Provincial issue of Elagabalus. RPC VI 5469.

Had a hunch that your coin was a roman provincial instead of imperial. A few filters (non-precious, 24 to 26 mm) and got a close match, N#384463 .

I could stop there, but I searched a bit more on other places.

Searching on RPC, I've found the type above (RPC 5467), but there's also a second similar type (RPC 5469). Finding the cornucopia on the second coin solved the question.

So, the full ID:

Conventus of Cybira

City of Hierapolis

Elagabalus

Obv: radiate and draped bust of Apollo Lairbenos, right

ΛΑΙΡΒΗΝΟϹ (Lairbenos)

Rev: Tyche standing facing, head left, wearing kalathos, holding cornucopia containing infant Ploutos and scales

ΙΕΡΑΠΟΛΕΙΤΩΝ ΝΕΩΚΟΡΩΝ (of the Hierapolitans, neocorate)

Avg. diam. 24mm

Avg. wei. ~6.5g

https://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/coins/6/5469

-Not yet on our catalog.

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I'm not a big expert on these.

Have experience with roman imperials, but not much on provincials.

Just had a feeling of where to go, this may lead to nothing, but this time I got lucky and found what I was looking for and quickly.

Good job Giobruno.

OP: if you scroll down to see the specimens documented on RPC, you will see 3 out of the 4 have the same countermark, GIC 278.  Here's the entry in that book, in case you find it useful/interesting:

The RPC authors have clearly felt confident enough to go further and identify the figure in the countermark as Mên, holding pinecone and sceptre.

Purplexed

Good job Giobruno.

 

OP: if you scroll down to see the specimens documented on RPC, you will see 3 out of the 4 have the same countermark, GIC 278.  Here's the entry in that book, in case you find it useful/interesting:

The RPC authors have clearly felt confident enough to go further and identify the figure in the countermark as Mên, holding pinecone and sceptre.

Thank you.

I admit I didn't pay attention to the countermark commentary on the specimens, looked on them only now.

I was focused on finding the coin itself, without thinking on the countermark.

Thank you Giobruno and Purplexed! 

Likewise, thank you for the excerpt - out of curiosity, do the RPC authors mention a possible purpose for the countermark? 

spac3nerd

Thank you Giobruno and Purplexed! 

 

Likewise, thank you for the excerpt - out of curiosity, do the RPC authors mention a possible purpose for the countermark? 

I only don't have access to the printed version for this volume, unfortunately, so I can't tell you if they've got more information.   In general there's very little evidence other than the coins themselves when it comes to countermarks.  The fact that this one just occurs at this one place likely indicates that it was the city itself that countermarked its own coins, and we could speculate that it was connected to something like a festival for Mên that took place there at some stage, presumably in the reign of Severus Alexander, given the last coin with it recorded by Howgego is from the reign of Elagabalus.  Proving a conjecture like that is probably impossible though.