The mint publishes first

Claim (verbatim)

The mint publishes first. In Byzantium the coin was the fastest image medium the court controlled: dies were recut within months, while mosaics, ivories, and books ran on multi-year project cycles. Innovations in imperial iconography — new crown forms, loros arrangements, newly court-adopted Christ and Virgin types — should therefore be attested on coins and lead seals before any other securely dated medium; not survival bias but a genuine publication order, with painters then copying from coins in hand.

Prediction clause (verbatim)

Primary clause (the verdict follows it): for a standard list of at least 15 imperial-iconography innovations between 600 and 1200, the earliest securely dated attestation lies on coinage or lead seals in at least 70 percent of cases, with a median lead of at least 15 years over the earliest dated attestation in any monumental or book medium. Secondary clause: the exceptions that appear book-first or wall-first cluster in periods when the mint was iconographically frozen, notably around iconoclasm.

Kill-dataset (verbatim)

Kill: the Dumbarton Oaks online catalogues of Byzantine coins and lead seals, set against dated monuments and manuscripts indexed in the Index of Medieval Art.

Novelty / leakage triage

provisional — model-triaged, shepherd review pending

A provisional first pass authored by the model (Opus), not yet confirmed by the shepherd. It carries the same dated-search requirements as an authoritative verdict but is excluded from every headline figure and cannot underwrite a prediction until a shepherd confirms it. Provisional reading: Adjacent (closely related prior work exists).

The priority of coinage as the court's fastest image medium is documented at the flagship: Justinian II's solidus (c.691) was the first Byzantine object to carry the bust of Christ, and after iconoclasm Michael III's die-cutters copied that coin type 'almost line for line' -- coins leading, painters following, the mint frozen during iconoclasm (the item's secondary clause). Not located: the item's systematic publication-order test -- for >= 15 imperial-iconography innovations between 600 and 1200, the earliest securely dated attestation lying on coins or lead seals in >= 70 percent of cases with a median >= 15-year lead over any monumental or book medium -- run over the Dumbarton Oaks coin and seal catalogues against dated monuments/manuscripts. Coin-priority documented by example; the median-lead measurement across a standard innovation list is unrun.

• American Numismatic Society, 'The Changing Iconography of Byzantine Gold Coinage' (Justinian II first Christ solidus; later line-for-line copying) — Coins carrying an imperial-iconography innovation first; the mint frozen during iconoclasm.
• Dumbarton Oaks online catalogues of Byzantine Coins and Lead Seals — The kill dataset for the coin/seal-vs-monument/manuscript publication-order test.

Predictions

No prediction registered yet.