Abstract:
The purpose and scientific novelty of the article. The study of imitation denarii of Octavian Augustus of the Malokopan type and the archaeological context of their finds. The article reveals for the first time a number of new facts previously unknown to historical science. The Conclusion. The article describes the context of numismatic items of the rare Mala Kopanya type. The related finds in the Chelenytsia, Serednyi Hrunok, and Mala Kopanya tracts are analysed. For the first time, the article identifies the type of Augustus coin, which was used as a basis for imitation. Thus, based on the materials of the study, it was established that the basis for the imitation was the denarius of Octavian Augustus which was coined in nineteenth-fourth centuries BC. The chronological boundaries of the denarius minting are correlated with the accompanying archaeological material discovered during excavations in 2010 and earlier archaeological expeditions in the Chelenytsia, Seredniy Grunok, and Mala Kopanya tracts.
The article also establishes that coins of this type were minted for a long time. This is evidenced by the data of non-destructive X-ray analysis and dies analysis. According to the dies analysis, no die pairs were identified. In turn, XRF analysis revealed differences in the ligature, namely, Zn was found in one of the coins under study, which was completely absent in the second coin, while in the second coin, Fe was found, which was completely absent in the first coin. The content of such an identifying ligature is significantly higher than the margin of tolerance and forms the belief that the coins were minted from different batches of silver with different origins.
