The ONAV Group of Barbarian Imitations and Copies of Roman Imperial Coins. Manufacturing of denarii subaerati in Eastern Europe in Antiquity

Several groups of barbarian imitations of Roman denarii including between a dozen-odd and over a hundred types have been analysed and published recently. Attribution to individual groups is based on die-links. The text presented here is the first detailed discussion of the largest of these groups — the ONAV Group. It includes imitations and copies of Roman denarii of the second–third centuries (mostly subaerati, some without evidence of barbarization of their designs, and a few struck in silver), a gold imitation of an aureus of the second century, and gold and gilded imitations of aurei from the turn of the third century. Nearly all of the coinsassigned to this group were discovered in Ukraine or Moldova. The geographic distribution of the ONAV Group coins suggests they were manufactured in a workshop located in the western part of Ukraine. The latest Roman prototypes for the imitations (late aurei) date the time of the operation of this workshop to the turn of the third century at the earliest. The ONAV Group is of major scholarly interest because it offers insight into the connection between the manufacture in Eastern Europe of imitations (and copies) of imperial denarii (in silver, and subaerati) and aurei (gold, or gilded) from the period of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty but also of the Tetrarchy, and shows that barbarians knew how to make counterfeit Roman denarii (denarii subaerati) without subjecting them to barbarization.