A guide to identifying Roman coins

This guide has principally been written by Ian Leins, formerly the Scheme's Finds Adviser for Iron Age and Roman coins and developed by Daniel Pett. Other contributions have come from Sam Moorhead, the Scheme's current Finds Adviser and Natalia Bauer who scanned the majority of the high resolution coins and wrote a large proportion of the biographies. It is intended as a visual aid to the identification of all types of Roman coins commonly found in the UK .

With any coin "find" it is useful to be able to record its denomination, the emperor named and shown on the front, the design on the reverse, any other information written on the coin and where possible the name of the mint at which it was produced.

Together these details allow us to date the coin. This information, when recorded together with a findspot (the spot where it was discovered), allows us to understand the supply, use and loss of Roman coinage in Britain and contributes to our knowledge of Britain during the Roman period.

The information contained within utilises some cutting edge, free technology created by a company called zoomify. Images used for these presentations are copyright of the British Museum, created by Ian Leins.

The database now contains 63602 coins that have been validated or are on validation.