coin
- Museum number
- 1890,0804.11
- Description
-
Copper alloy coin. (whole)
-
Christogram topped standard (labarum or vexillum) with shaft piercing serpent. (reverse)
-
Laureate head of Constantine. (obverse)
- Production date
- 327
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 18 millimetres
-
Weight: 2.96 grammes
- $Inscriptions
-
-
-
- Curator's comments
- Constantine’s standard pierces a serpent representing his defeated rivals. This is the first coin type where the design explicitly proclaims Constantine’s new faith by showing his Christogram standard. Christograms had made subtle appearances just prior to this as an occasional mint mark of Ticinum of AD 319-20. It also appears as a helmet motif on some coins of AD 319 from the mint of Siscia, RIC VII.433.61. (The interpretation of the Christogram-like feather pattern at the front of the helmet crest on a silver medallion of AD 315 from Ticinum, RIC VII.364.36 remains debatable.). However the Ticinum and Siscia examples were embellishments to the common design which could have been on the initiative of the local mint official or even the die engraver.
The standard’s banner bears three discs that would have carried imperial images (described by Eusebius: Vita Constantini I, 28-31). These images represented Constantine himself and his two sons Constantine II and Constantius II who were his junior colleagues at the time.
The mint of Constantinople had already begun by about AD 326, in advance of the city’s official foundation in AD 330.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
2013, 17 May - 20 Oct, British Museum, Gallery 69a, Coins and the Bible
2006 31 Mar-29 Oct, York, Yorkshire Museum, Constantine
2007 18 Nov-2008 30 Mar, USA, Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, Picturing the Bible: The Earliest Christian Art
2012/13 25 Oct-17 Mar, Milan, Palazzo Reale, Constantine 313
- Acquisition date
- 1890
- Department
- Coins and Medals
- Registration number
- 1890,0804.11
