The Celtic World (Routledge Worlds)

• Trade and Exchange -

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1. 2. 3.

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Figure 13.4 Distribution of implements used in the minting of coins in Late Iron Age Celtic
Europe. r -balances; 2 -moulds for casting coin blanks; 3 -coin dies. (From Steuer 1987: 413,
fig. r; reproduced with permission from Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Gottingen.)

two Attic kylikes and an Etruscan jug and basins at Vix, and a bronze tripod, bone,

ivory and amber sphinxes and fragments of furniture at Grafenbiihl. For unique

objects such as the Vix krater, the Grafenbiihl tripod and the Grachwil hydria, an

exchange mechanism such as gift-giving is more likely than barter trade (see below)

to account for their presence in Celtic graves. Lavish and unique Mediterranean

imports are less common in the later Iron Age, but wealthy graves then were still

characterized by luxury imports from the south. At Hannogne in eastern France, a

grave that contained an iron sword and local ornaments also had a bronze jug and

pan, pottery and an amphora, all of Roman manufacture (Flouest and Stead 1977).

Graves at Goeblingen-Nospelt in Luxembourg (Haffner 1974) and at Welwyn in

southern Britain (Stead 1967) dating from the middle and late first century Be

(fig. 7.7), contained a large quantity of Roman imports, including ceramic amphorae,

many bronze vessels and large quantities of fine pottery.

Hoards

Hoards often contain objects that were made in other regions, and they are some-

times interpreted as travelling merchants' deposits. The Erstfeld hoard, from the

northern end of an Alpine pass in Switzerland, contained gold rings manufactured in

the middle Rhine area (Wyss 1975). Whether the find represents a merchant's cache

that was never collected, or an offering for safe passage through the mountains, the

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