Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
40 Nummi - Justinian I Rome, Bust Facing, ✶
| Issuer | Byzantine Empire |
|---|---|
| Year | 539-565 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 1 Follis = 40 Nummi (1⁄180) |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Facing helmeted and cuirassed bust of Emperor Justinian I in military attire, rendered in the frontal Byzantine imperial style. The emperor wears a plumed helmet adorned with ear-pieces and a diadem, and is clad in a decorated cuirass with paludamentum visible at the shoulders. In his right hand he holds a globus cruciger, symbol of imperial and Christian authority, while his left hand rests at his side. The legend encircles the bust in the field, reading from left to right. The portrait reflects the characteristic stylized formalism of sixth-century Byzantine coinage produced at the Rome mint. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | ND (539-565) ROMA |
| Additional information |
The star control mark (✶) on this follis variant has been the subject of ongoing scholarly debate — some attribute it to a specific mint officina, others to a supervisory or quality-control function introduced under Justinian's extensive monetary reforms of 538 AD, which reorganized the follis and its fractions across multiple eastern and western mints. Rome itself was only intermittently under Byzantine control during this period, retaken from the Ostrogoths in 536 and contested repeatedly through the Gothic Wars.
The BMC Vandal reference is a cataloguing inheritance rather than an ethnic attribution — early British Museum organization grouped certain western issues under that heading before the field developed more precise Byzantine provincial distinctions.