Canterbury Roman Museum … gold coins and silver ingots

Was in the museum a few days ago. Spotted some Celtic gold coins. Can read the description in the picture. There were also some Roman silver ingots, 4th century AD, some with hallmarks. Discovered in 1962. Ingots would probably be melted and poured into planchet molds. Then coins would be struck and used to pay the army.

Mike

 

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All I can say is, WOW! I like the bars because they look like dog bones. Can you imagine?

 

I am ancient deficient. So these are Not coins but friendship tokens? Is that correct? Would these maybe have been part of a cult of Apollo or some such thing? Any information appreciated. james

 

Gold celtic coins of this type are often call barbarous imitations. Very unlikely a cult of Apollo was involved. A chieftain or wealthy merchant had some gold they wanted coined. There was no professional engraver available, so an amateur was given a Greek coin, which depicted Apollo’s chariot, and told to use it as a model for the dies. The result is what you see. Mike