Modern Counterfeit or an Authentic Artefact is the Deultum’s Medallion of Diadumenian?

Abstract

The paper presents in detail all the opinions, published in the numismatic literature concerning the medallion minted by Deultum for caesar Diadumenian. After their thorough study and thanks to the XRF analysis of the item conducted by Boyka Zlateva, combined with all evidences for the historical context in the region of Thrace and Lower Moesia, the author inclines to view the medallion as an authentic piece, not a counterfeit. Several questions are posed and hypotheses are reasoned: 1. Would it not be correct if the artifact is referred to not as a bronze one, but as an orichalcum/aurichalcum, having in mind its very yellowish colour? 2. Тhe numerous peculiarities in the portrait on the medallion could appear if it was minted before the official portrait of Diadumenian was created in Rome. Such a possibility accords with the entire complex of evidence from the provinces Thrace and Lower Moesia. 3. Concerning the iconographic discrepancies between the reverse image of the medallion and the one on the alleged prototype (Domitian’s sestertius), the logical question arises whether two different events are depicted on the two reverses, both of them being a sacrifice. The sacrificial animal on the Deultum’s medallion has been described by the experts either as a pig, or as resembling a bear, neither of which seems correct, due to the animal’s really long legs. Its identification depends on future more precise information about its tail, head and legs, however the possible “candidates” are an ewe, a she-goat, a bull or a cow.