After some encouragement and inspiration by @Nap 's brilliant collection of Northumbrian stycas (as well as the upcoming sale of Tony Abramson's 'dark age' collection at Spink in December) I recently made my first purchase of a silver Northumbrian sceatta. In essence, these coins reflect a continuation of the un-attributable sceatta coinages of both continental and British manufacture which circulated extensively here from c. AD 680 up to the earlier decades of the 8th century. However, Northumbrian examples are more developed than these earlier pieces in the respect that they name both the king and moneyer clearly upon them. Names (often in runic form) do appear on the earlier sceattas, but it is uncertain whether these are of rulers, moneyers or even places. While places like Mercia and Wessex were transitioning to use of the larger, thinner silver pennies, Northumbria very much adheres to tradition - preferring to continue issuing these small but quite solid coins. First issued under King Eadberht (737-758) these Northumbrian sceattas initially are of fairly good (though not sterling fine) silver - but become more debased from the reigns of Æthelred I onwards. By the start of the reign of King Eanred in c. AD 810, the silver content appears to be in some cases as low as 30% - and soon even this would disappear totally. It is in Eanred's reign that the silver sceatta ceases to exist in the true sense, becoming a copper-alloy coin known now as the styca. This coin (pic. 1) is a non-pictorial issue of reasonably good silver, probably struck for King Æthelred I's second reign of c. AD 789-796 by the moneyer CEOLBALD; Obverse: AEDILRED, cross surmounting quadripartite square motif Reverse: +CEOLBALD, circular boss within pelleted ring Spink 856, Pirie 1.3a This is a rare variant on the most commonly encountered type, which has a cross-in-pelleted ring at the centre of the obverse. I have found one other die-pair duplicate on a Yorkshire dealer's website (see below). Perhaps this interesting symbol is intended to be reminiscent of a large churchyard cross, such as those Northumbrian examples encountered at Easby, Ruthwell and Bewcastle. Who knows!
Great addition, congratulations. I suspect there is some similarity of the cross on box to the cross on triangle type of the same King Aethelred, sometimes called a shrine, by the moneyer Cuthgils.
