This doesn't look like much of a coin but some intrigue starts growing when we discover it's from the 4th or 5th Century in the Roman Empire. Something perhaps nominally intriguing was the relationship of the coin to the highly imperialist nature of that empire since here's a description of some of them:
Details that were barely distinguishable emerged more clearly in X-ray analysis. One bears an image of fourth-century Roman Emperor Constantine I, and another shows a helmeted soldier holding a shield in one hand, while stabbing an enemy with a spear in the other.
- PHYS.ORG
That seems a tip from the Romans in driving your empire, that a benign appearance to your money since that's so weak; much better to have money which scares the bejeebers out of people. The beauty part is where the coins were found since they turned up in Japan in a castle which was not built until at least six hundred years later. Now you have got a mystery which will the scientists fascinating until they discover how they made that distance in space and time. (PHYS.ORG: Roman coins ID'd in Japanese ruins, but their origin baffles)
Within the article it's revealed some aspects of ancient global trade so it really doesn't seem such a mystery but I confess my interest in coins has never been much beyond stuffing them in slot machines which I'm well aware is about as sensible as burying them in ancient ruins to befuddle the future.
- PHYS.ORG
The article has more details and multiple examples of coins which seem estimable to a casual collector but are actually nearly priceless, at least to the scientific community.
There's a moral to the story in finding all that's left of one of world's greatest and most militaristic empires is a handful of crumby copper coins in Japan but we leave it to you to write the editorial.
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