A new interpretation
AR Denarius (18mm, 3.42g, 6h). Rome mint, struck Sept 18 - Dec 31, 81 (Commemorative Issue, RIC's "Group 1"), bgmhi.
IMP CAESAR DOMITIANVS AVG, head laureate right; TR P COS VII, either the emperor's hands placing a wreath into a three-legged brazier or chafing dish beneath a dolphin-shaped lid, ribbons of smoke spilling from the brazier (or else it's just a dolphin, a wreath, a couple of ravens, and a tripod), furniture of the Augustan Temple of Apollo on the Palatine.
RIC 5 (C), BMC 4, RSC 552.
Ex Gorny & Mosch.
It is my revised opinion that the engraver is having a little joke, so that the ravens are hand-shaped, allowing ambiguity between the actual process of reducing a laurel wreath to ashes and ravens, mascots to Apollo.
