an ancient gold coin, once thought to be fake, has now revealed the existence of a third century roman commander. the coin bears the name and image of an historicalfigure, sponsian, who had previously been written out of the history books. here s 0ur science correspondent, pallab ghosh. a roman coin that has baffled historians, thought have been a fake for hundreds of years. a close look shows pit marks. these and its crude design led to the experts thinking it was made by forgers in the 18th century. oh, that s really nice around there. can we get a higher resolution image of that? but scientist, paul pierson, thought they were wrong. so he began a forensic investigation. silicon, oxygen, iron. under a high power microscope, he found scratches, which could only have been produced by rubbing together with other coins in purses. and a chemical analysis showed that it had been buried under the soilfor hundreds of years. all clues that indicate that it was genuine. yeah, look at that.
a roman coin that has baffled historians, thought to have been a fake for hundreds of years. a close look shows pit marks. these and its crude design led to the experts thinking it was made by forgers in the 18th century. oh, that s really nice around there. can we get a higher resolution image of that? but scientist, paul pearson thought they were wrong. so he began a forensic investigation. silicon, oxygen, iron. under a high power microscope, he found scratches, which could only have been produced by rubbing together with other coins in purses. and a chemical analysis showed that it had been buried under the soilfor hundreds of years. all clues that indicate that it was genuine. yeah, look at that. i think what we found is an emperor, an important historical figure in his own time, thought to have been a fake, been written off by all the experts and the historians. we ve found that he was real