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| Issuer | Gepid Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Year | 491-518 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | 0.40 g |
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| Obverse description | Pearl-diademed, draped, and cuirassed bust of Emperor Anastasius I facing right, rendered in the late Roman imperial tradition. The effigy is encircled by a Latin legend naming the emperor in the dative, executed in somewhat crude barbaric style characteristic of Gepid coinage. The portrait retains the essential iconographic conventions of contemporary Byzantine imperial coinage, though with noticeably less refined execution in the die engraving. |
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| Reverse description | A crude, interlaced monogram of Theoderic occupies the central field, surmounted by a small cross above. The entire design is enclosed within a beaded wreath border, visible here as a series of radiating leaf-like elements forming a prominent circular frame. The monogram, rendered in a simplified and somewhat barbaric fashion, reflects Theoderic's authority as the Ostrogothic ruler under whose political sphere the Gepids struck this coinage at Sirmium. The overall execution is typical of post-Roman barbarian silver issues imitating Byzantine prototypes. |
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| Additional information |
After Theoderic's Ostrogothic forces took Sirmium from the Gepids in 504, the city briefly became a flashpoint of competing authority in the middle Danube. These fractional silver pieces, struck in the names of both the Byzantine emperor and Theoderic, reflect the layered legitimacy that barbarian rulers required — imperial sanction was not merely decorative but politically necessary for acceptance in trade and administration. The Gepid attribution remains debated among specialists, and the MEC I unlisted status underscores how few examples have been studied in a systematic context.