Cleaning Roman Coins - Time Lapse

I go into great detail about how I clean my ancient roman coins, using a stereo microscope. The video has some time-lapse segments to show the cleaning process over time.

I have more video, but the quality was not as good so I never compiled it.

The obverse shows Roma, a female deity who personified the city of Rome and more broadly, the Roman state. This coin dates between 330 and 335 AD. during the reign of Emperor Constantine the Great. The legend reads "URBS ROMA" which translates to City of Rome.

The reverse of the coin shows a she-wolf suckling the young Remus and Romulus- the founders of Rome. Romulus and Remus are Rome's twin founders in its traditional foundation myth. Their mother, Rhea Silvia was the daughter of Numitor, king of Alba Longa. Numitor's younger brother Amulius seized the throne and killed Numitor's son, then forced Rhea Silvia to become a Vestal Virgin, a priestess of the goddess Vesta. As Vestal Virgins were sworn to celibacy for a period of thirty years, this would ensure the line of Numitor had no heirs. However, Rhea Silvia conceived and gave birth to the twins Romulus and Remus, claiming that the god Mars had fathered the child. When Amulius learned of the birth he imprisoned Rhea Silvia and ordered a servant to kill the twins. But the servant showed mercy and set them adrift on the river Tiber, which, overflowing, left the infants in a pool by the bank. There a she-wolf, who had just lost her own cubs, suckled them. Romulus and Remus went on to found the new city of Rome, overthrow Amulius, and reinstate Numitor as King of Alba Longa.

The two stars above the wolf represent the dioscuri (the twins Castor and Pollux). The Dioscuri were regarded as helpers of humankind and held to be patrons of travelers and of sailors in particular, who invoked them to seek favorable winds. Their role as horsemen and boxers also led to them being regarded as the patrons of athletes and athletic contests. Even after the rise of Christianity, the Dioskouroi continued to be venerated. The fifth-century pope Gelasius I attested to the presence of a "cult of Castores" that the people did not want to abandon. In some instances, the twins appear to have simply been absorbed into a Christian framework; thus fourth-century AD pottery and carvings from North Africa depict the Dioskouroi alongside the Twelve Apostles, the Raising of Lazarus or with Saint Peter. The church took an ambivalent attitude, rejecting the immortality of the Dioskouroi but seeking to replace them with equivalent Christian pairs. Saints Peter and Paul were thus adopted in place of the Dioskouroi as patrons of travelers, and Saints Cosmas and Damian took over their function as healers.

Видео Cleaning Roman Coins - Time Lapse канала Peter Kennett