The Celtic World (Routledge Worlds)

• Chapter Fourteen -

integrated foreign coinage into their own systems of social relations during the
generations preceding the introduction of coinages of their own, the Scots and the
Irish had little or no such history of exposure to the use of coinage, and continued
to prosper without it.

Table 14.2 Principal prototypes for British coinage

Origin in Gaul

Pi cardy earliest gold (late 3rd/early
2nd century BC)

Picardy wide flan gold staters
(=Gallo-Belgic A, mid-2nd-early 1st
century BC)

Gaulish potin (2nd century BC)

Picardy Gallo-Belgic C gold
(c.100-60 BC), the single most
influential prototype for early British
gold coinage

Belgic gold quarter-staters, geometric
design (Gallo-Belgic DC), uncertain
coastal origin (c. 100-60 BC)

Belgic silver coinages (late 2ndhst
century BC)

Picardy uniface staters (= Gallo-Belgic
E, c.60-50 BC).

Suessiones gold staters (= Gallo-Belgic

F, c. 60-50 BC)

Aulerci Eburovices gold (c.70-50 BC)

Ambiani under Roman control (after

50 BC)

Roman coinage current in Gaul

(50 BC-AD 40)

British coinage

A few found, esp. Kent, but not copied

Numerous imports, centre of distribution

probably Kent; some late issues

probably struck in Britain; not copied

Imported, mainly Kent, then first British

potin coinage begins by late 2nd

century (focus in Kent)

Imports same area; first gold copies

c.80-60 BC on periphery of areas of

distribution of Picardy coinages

Numerous imports, inspired coastal

British gold and silver types c.80/60

BC and later

Few known imports, but inspired British

silver types from mid-1st century BC

onwards

The main Belgic coinage of the Gallic

war; imported in huge quantities into

Britain, some probably struck there,

but only slightly influential with

subsequent British coin design (some

uniface staters of eastern Britain)

Few known imports, but inspired early

gold of Atrebatic dynasty and

neighbours

Few known imports, but inspired silver

types of central-southern and western

Britain

Some imports, and inspired bronze types,

esp. in Kent from C.20 BC onwards

Modest imports; influenced coinage types

in all metals in dynasties of southern

and eastern Britain, c. I 5 BC onwards