MYSTERY OBJECT: ANCIENT ROMAN NIPPLE COVER?

If it weighs in the range of .06 to .13 grams, it may be what I call a "Gold Sombrero," though your piece appears to have been smashed flat. As far as I know these are not published anywhere, and I collect pre-colonial coinages of Malaysia and Indonesia for just this reason. For the last ten years or so construction and dredging in Sumatra has provided quantities of previously rare, obscure, or totally unknown coinages.

These and other early gold of the region reportedly come from the Musi River area of southern Sumatra, Indonesia, once the Sultanate of Palambang. Sellers there call them 1/32 Massa coins of the Kingdom of Srivijaya. Later coinages of the region, mostly tin coins imitating Chinese cash, and later tin with Javanese or crude Arabic inscriptions, have been the subject of articles by Drs. Michael Mitchiner and T. D. Yih in the Journal of the Oriental Numismatic Society, various issues 2012-13, and some other previously unknown coinages of the Srivijaya era are published in Ronachai Krisadaolarn's two recent books on Thai coinages - but not these. They are probably rare, but because nobody knows about them, they can be had for not much more than the price of a common Indian gold fannam. I'm guessing that their three dimensional shape is to make them easier to pick up.

As for the Gold Mystery Object in last week's E-Sylum: Looks like an ancient Roman gold nipple cover to me!

This thin gold circle with a raised middle looks very much like a nipple, and since we know the Romans were sexually quite liberal, it makes sense that perhaps it was worn by a wealthy courtesan.

Unfortunately, there is zero evidence for this mental image of bedazzled babes. Classical archaeologist Sarah Levin-Richardson says that "there is no visual evidence from Pompeii of prostitutes wearing nipple covers -- gilded or otherwise." And classicist David Meadows cautions that "considering the social status of sex workers in the ancient Roman world, I doubt they'd be trusted with gold nipples. Their clients wouldn't be trustworthy either." And at just 21mm in diameter, this object seems quite small.