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.
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]
[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
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