Why Iron Age coins are really cool

Coins in archaeology are cool for obvious reasons – they’re fairly easy to find (sort of), and if you’re really lucky they’ll still look pretty too. But Iron Age coins in Britain are cool because they’re just a bit crazy as well.

The first coins appeared in Britain towards the end of the Iron Age, and these coins were Roman coins, brought over through trade and travel. But then something amazing happened - for whatever reason the non-Roman Iron Age people (“Celts” you might say, although this name is contentious, and does not refer to a specific archaeological culture), decided that this coinage lark was a pretty good idea, and started making their own.

However, they didn’t quite grasp the concept. The first coins in Britain were copies of Imperial coinage, and the more times they were copied the more bizarre they became, like a money version of Chinese Whispers.

[1]

First, we have the gold stater of Philip II of Macedon, who ruled between 359 and 336 BC, which features the head of Apollo on one side, and a horse/chariot on the other. Pretty standard Roman-issue coin.

Second is an Iron Age copy, known as a Gallo-Belgic type-A coin. The wreath crowning Apollo is now exaggerated, and the horse has become much more stylised. But we can still recognise the man and horse.

And thirdly, the Gallo-Belgic F type, the last in the sequence of reproductions. There is no longer a recognisable head - the laurel wreath from the original stater has become the main feature of the obverse side. The reverse still features a horse, albeit one with three tails – which became a popular feature of British coinage for the next few decades.

This evolution of coinage is one of my favourite things in archaeology because it’s just so strange. One of the reasons to make coins is to validate the authority of a ruling power by featuring their likeness on coins. So for non-Roman people to feature Roman symbolism on their coinage is strange anyway. However, some scholars have claimed that the devolution of a recognisable horse (for example) is in fact a “celticization” of the coins – with a new emphasis on parts of “Celtic” culture that were important or significant. So the wreath, the motif of leaves or nature, becomes more important than the man.[2]

Whatever the reason, it’s completely fascinating. The end-of-the-sequence coins are unrecognisable, devolving into a series of dots or crescents in British examples. In one notable East Anglian example there is an image known as the ‘Norfolk wolf’, due to the horse’s jaw becoming enlarged and its teeth serrated.

The development of Iron Age coinage in Britain has been well researched and documented - first by the Celtic Coin Index, and more recently by the Portable Antiquities Scheme. The PAS is particularly awesome, and their website is definitely worth a look. Since 1997 the PAS has been cataloguing all the non-professional archaeological finds within England and Wales. That means if your Uncle Joe finds something shiny in his garden, he should report it to his local PAS liaison officer, who will correctly catalogue and record the find, before giving it back to Joe.[3]

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[1] All coin images taken from Celtic Coinage in Britain by Philip de Jersey (1996).

[2] An excellent book that delves into the relationship between coinage and authority is Coins and Power in Late Iron Age Britain by John Creighton (2000).

[3] Unless it’s “treasure”, for more information see http://finds.org.uk/treasure/advice/summary

An Archaeological Fairytale

Something different this week - a fairytale for a bit of fun.

Once upon a time there lived a princess called Tabitha. Tabitha lived in a castle on top of a hill (a hillfort one might say), and the moat below was filled with sleeping dragons. Big dragons, small dragons, red, green and gold, with eyes like coal and claws like daggers. The dragons slept 23 hours a day, but one dragon would always have its eyes open, watching the land all around and the castle behind as well. No one could get in or out.

If somehow you managed to get past the dragons, the surrounding woods were home to giants at least 10 foot tall, and all the stories said that they liked to eat small children for breakfast with jam and eggs. Tabitha was told that the dragons and the giants were for her own protection, but she still felt like a prisoner.

Not so far away there lived a young boy, about the same age as Tabitha who lived in a village with his 3 older brothers. His name was Henry. Henry’s older brothers told him they were all going to become knights, and used to practice with wooden sticks every day, but they would only laugh at Henry when he tried to join in.

But they would let him listen to their stories of knights and quests as they sat round the fire at night. One night Eric, the eldest, spoke of a princess imprisoned in a tower high up on a hill, surrounded by giants and dragons. The only way to get past them, Eric said, was to find the magic wings that would let you fly right over the heads of the giants and the dragons, and rescue the princess unharmed.

Of course, Eric said sadly, the wings had been lost hundreds of years ago, and were buried in the earth somewhere never to be found again.

Henry decided he was going to find them, and rescue the princess. He’d seen a castle on a hill, far in the distance when he walked across the countryside. He’d rescue the princess and then he’d be a better knight than any of his brothers.

So Henry borrowed a spade and a trowel and he dug. He dug in the east, and he dug in the west. He dug every day for weeks and weeks, making maps of his progress, carefully marking where he had been and replacing the earth after each long day. And then finally, just as summer was turning to autumn, he found them. Despite the dirt they shone white and gold, and they were beautiful. Henry knew at once he’d found what he was looking for.

Henry went home that night with the wings hidden under his coat, but early the next morning he slipped out without waking anyone and ran to the top of the nearest hill. Putting on the wings Henry jumped off the hill and he could fly! He was flying!

He flew straight across the land, right up to the dark woods, and over the heads of the giants. He flew over sleeping dragons as well, and even though one dragon saw him and woke all the others, they were all so sleepy and so old that they couldn’t unfurl their wings quickly enough. Henry flew straight in through the tower window where the princess was held to rescue her, and out again before the dragons could so much as flap one wing in protest.

Henry carried Tabitha all the way back home where his brothers stared in disbelief, and they couldn’t say no to Henry being a knight after that.

So the boy saved the princess, and they lived happily ever after. And the wings ended up in a museum afterwards, obviously. 

What is a map?

This one seems fairly simple, at least. A map is something that shows us where things are – the physical locations of things. But what about mind maps? They show us things that aren’t actual objects, and don’t have a geographical location, so are they maps?

The International Cartographic Association defines a map as a symbolised image of geographic reality, designed for use when spatial relationships are of special relevance.

So a map must:

1. show what is actually there in the world
2. show how things relate to each other in space

But, a quick look at well-known maps in current usage shows this is not true. Take the London Tube Map – whilst the spatial relationships are accurate, the map as a whole does not represent the geographical reality of London “above”[1], and it would be difficult to use a tube map to navigate the streets of London. Does that prevent it from being a map?

The key to understanding what makes a map lies further back in history.

A wall painting at Çatal Hüyük[2]

The above rock art is believed to show the town of Çatal Hüyük, with the now-dormant local volcano Hasan Dag depicted at the top. We can call this a map because it depicts a spatial relationship that would have been useful to the inhabitants of the town at that time – it depicts where the local threat of a volcano existed in reference to their town. This is what maps are – the transfer of useful knowledge about events in space.

What is useful? Despite its modern popularity, the phrase “Here be dragons” has appeared on only one historical map – that of the Lenox Globe (c. 1510), in the Latin form “hic sunt dracones”. This phrase is believed to refer to the tribe of Dagroian people, rather than actual dragons, although the geographical location is wrong. So were these “dragons” people, dangerous beasts, or unchartered territory? With each, maybe the phrase just serves as a warning to take care.

The Lenox Globe [3]

A map must be meaningful, but more than that, it must be meaningful to the people who used it. So any “map” from the depths of history may well not make sense to us in modern times. This shift in perception is noticeable even in modern maps – Ordnance Survey maps mark the positions of telephone boxes, but when was the last time you used one? Are they merely there now as useful navigation tools? How many people are really using paper maps nowadays?

I, for one, love paper maps, and would rather trust one (and a compass), than a mapping app on my phone, purely because so many things can go wrong with a phone (loss of signal, battery life), but the paper map will still work. Equally, as a GIS[4]-user, I’m a big fan of creating digital maps, and recognise that these two approaches have different uses. GIS can be used to map thing such as inter-visibility between hilltop sites (hillforts, yay!), or the direction that rain will drain across a landscape. Whilst these operations are not impossible on paper (I wouldn’t fancy trying them), in practical terms, a GI-system is much easier and much more accessible.

So, in conclusion, I would say that maps show us topography – whether this is the topography of a landscape, of a mind, or of perception. A map is useful - it shows us things we might need to know. And maybe the dragons are all just hiding – if they let themselves be mapped people might try to kill them, after all.  

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[1] In talking about London Above, it is always important to remember Neil Gaiman, who in Neverwhere, created a whole second London "Below" - a reality based on the London tube system (so there really is an Angel in Islington…). Brilliant book.

[2] Reproduced from Delano-Smith, 1982 - The Emergence of “Maps” in European Rock Art: A Prehistoric Preoccupation with Place, in Imago Mundi, vol. 34, p9–25.

[3] Held in the New York Public library, image from http://exhibitions.nypl.org/treasures/items/show/163

[4] Geographic Information System or Science

Fun Finds for February 4th

Since I cannot resist a bit of alliteration, this week’s blog post will be featuring a few of my favourite finds from British archaeology.

[1]

First is an artefact dated to the Late Neolithic in Britain (around 2500 BC), found in West Kennet Long Barrow, near Avebury, Wiltshire. This beaker is typical of the Bell-Beaker culture, prevalent throughout Western Europe at that time. Its intact condition means it is one of the more well-known finds of the British Neolithic, and the fact that it is so beautifully conserved makes it an excellent example of the beakers that give the culture its name.

[2]

Second is an artefact found a few miles away from my parent’s home in Cornwall – near St. Keverne on the Lizard Peninsula.

This decorated bronze mirror dates to the Iron Age (dated to around 100-1 BC), and is akin to other mirrors found dating to that time. This mirror was found buried in conjunction with jewellery, and as such the grave was assumed to be a woman. However, several years later a similar mirror was found in a burial along with a sword. Iron Age swords are assumed to be male grave-goods, but there is no conclusion available on whether this second burial was male or female, or whether the first was actually male.

Either way, it shows us that as archaeologists we must be careful about assuming sex based on grave goods or possessions – gender stereotypes are alive and kicking in burial archaeology it would seem.

[3]

In 2010 I was lucky enough to be part of an excavation at Roman Caerleon – one of three Roman Legionary Fortresses in England, and the only one not currently buried beneath a modern town (the other two being Chester and York). Once assumed to be an Arthurian site (the amphitheatre was Arthur’s “round table”), nowadays this link is not thought to be true. There’s also an Iron Age hillfort at Caerleon (yay).

This fish brooch was one of three found on the dig, and was likely to have been used for decoration on clothing. Other animal-themed finds include a dolphin, and a pin head fashioned into the likeness of a lion. It is interesting to think about the symbolism of animals and what these specific ones would have meant.

 [4]

Of course, one of the most exciting recent finds is that of Richard III, confirmed today by archaeologists at the University of Leicester. Found last year, the skeleton gave certain clues as to its identity – you can see from the image the curvature of the spine, from a condition known as scoliosis, which causes one shoulder to sit higher than the other. This could have given the “hunchback” that Richard III was famed for.

The remains were confirmed as Richard through DNA testing, as well as radio-carbon dating of the bones. What I find fantastic is the media-focus of this event in Britain, and how great it is for archaeology to have such a prominent feature in the news.

Next week – a brief history of maps - were there really dragons?

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[1] © Copyright Wiltshire Heritage Museum

[2] © Trustees of the British Museum

[3] Image credit www.caerleon.net

[4] Image credit – University of Leicester