This Mysterious Gold Pendant Featuring a Misspelled Inscription Is an Early Medieval Imitation of a Roman Coin

About two years ago, a metal detectorist unearthed a small gold pendant near the town of Attleborough in Norfolk, England. It was designed to look like a Roman coin—called a solidus—that had been introduced during the fourth century C.E.

But the coin wasn’t a real solidus. Instead, it turned out to be an imitation of a Roman coin, as Live Science’s Hannah Kate Simon reports. Dating to the late fifth or early sixth century C.E., it was made by the group sometimes known as the Anglo-Saxons.

Because the pendant features a gold loop attached to the top, historians think it was meant to be worn as jewelry, not used as currency. This makes it “very unusual,” Adrian Marsden, a numismatist with the Norfolk County Council’s Identification and Recording Service, tells BBC News’ Katy Prickett.

“We see Roman gold coins being repurposed as pendants, occasionally with very similar suspension loops, but here they've made the whole thing from scratch,” he adds.

One side of the pendant features the bust of Honorius, the Roman emperor who ruled from 393 to 423 C.E. He’s shown wearing chest armor and a pearl diadem. The other side depicts a person holding a banner or flag with a cross on it.

The actual Roman solidus bore the phrase “RESTITVTOR REIPVBLICAE,” which translates to “Restorer of the Republic.” However, on the imitation pendant, it’s misspelled as “STITVTOR EIPVBLICAE.” Marsden tells Live Science that these mistakes may not have mattered to the item’s creators, who probably weren’t trying to create an exact replica.

Typos aside, the pendant is also unusual for another reason: Its creators were likely pagans. Despite their beliefs, they chose to copy a coin from a period when Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire.

“It’s slightly ironic,” Marsden tells BBC News. “These people are definitely not Christian, yet they are copying a Christian image.”

But why did these craftsmen make the pendant in the first place? During this period, the Anglo-Saxons were starting to conquer present-day England—and they may have been taking inspiration from the region’s previous rulers, Marsden tells Live Science. England was part of the Roman Empire between roughly 43 and 410 C.E. The pendant “demonstrates a desire to plug into this vanished age,” he adds.

The coin has been deemed a “treasure,” a protected status given to artifacts of historical significance discovered in the United Kingdom. Typically, coins are considered treasures when they are at least 30 years old and made of materials like gold or silver.

Such artifacts cannot be sold to private bidders; instead, cultural institutions are given the chance to purchase them for their collections. According to BBC News, a museum will likely acquire the gold pendant.

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Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.