Ancients: Celtic Coinage

I've seen Celtic coins before. The artwork on them is so fascinating to me. The faces always look so funny in a cool way. I really dont know much about them but Id love to know more. What I do know is that they imitated a lot of coins but besides that I dont really know anything. Im really interested in these coins. To me the artwork on them is the same or maybe even surpasses the artwork on Athenian Owls and thats saying A LOT coming from me. I just wish I knew more about them so if anyone could help that would be appreciated. Thanks

 

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I have the British Museum books on Celtic coins, as well as a fwe others. I think it was the British Museum books that had a great overview of the issuing areas of Celtic coins, how many were from Philip types, others were copies of Messalia, while a third major grouping were of Roman Republic derivatives. I would try to get a good Celtic Coinage book from your library, (interlibrary loan), since there is way more information in there than I can relate.

One thing related to Celtic coins is don't fall for that "wheel money" con on Ebay. There is evidence of a few gold rings being used as money in Celtic towns, but 99.99999% of all bronze "ring money" on Ebay and similar are simply parts for horse harnesses and similar.

 

Thanks for the advice. Did they make their own coinage to use? And why did they make so many imitatives?

 

Here are some online sources for more info on Celtic coinage:

http://www.kernunnos.com/
http://www.writer2001.com/improvisations.htm
http://www.celticcoins.ca/
http://www.celticcoins.ca/coin.php

Chris Rudd, out of England, is one of the premiere Celtic dealers, I believe. I like his page devoted to explaining his love of the coinage: http://www.celticcoins.com/pages/love.html

 

Wow thats a lot. Very confusing. Do you know a good place to start? Maybe it would help that I say I like the older ones more. I think those ones are Greek? Ive seen coins labeled "Kugelwange". I dont know what that means but those coins look so cool. I like when the heads on the coins look funny and the horses look magnificent. But there doesnt have to be horse on them.

 

Maybe this search will be a little more difficult than I thought. Well anyways here are a few examples of ones I think are really cool.

The one above once again uses the term "Kugelwange" which I have no idea what that means.
All of these coins are connected to this mysterious "Kugelwange Type". I find these coins to be very cool. They look very tribal and I like that.

This one is a Kapostal Type. Dont know what that means though.

I have no idea what these ones are but they are cool.

These are just some examples that I like but I do like others that aren't here. If anyone has any info on these or just Celtic coins in general please comment.

 

I know zip about ancient Celtic coins, but they do have a certain primitive allure. If I didn't already have my hands full with Roman and Greek I wouldn't mind looking more into them.

A quick google search suggests that Kugelwange means "ball cheek", and if you look at the coins you posted, the portraits do seem to have distinctly large ball on the cheek. Beyond that, I don't have a clue.

 

I've read some of the material that Bob L. posted, but certainly not all - there's a lot there. Two things stand out to me about Celtic coinage.

First, on an aesthetic level, the process of abstracting Hellenistic designs is very interesting. The various tribes all put their own unique twists on Greek motives, and it's entertaining to simply look through all the coin listings and see how those designs were interpreted.

Second, since we don't have any written records from the Celts, other than occasional monumental inscriptions, coin evidence is one of the primary sources of archaeological data. We know what little we know of the Celts from their coins.

 

Oh man, I'm so glad I read this thread...

@silverdrachm I too am interested in Celtic coins however I never searched very hard for them. All the listings I saw on vCoins were too pricey for my modest budget.

@Bob L. Thanks for posting those links. Turns out I'm only an hour away from Chris Rudd (he's mail order only but still) and his website is panning out to be a great resource.

 

Does this mean its hard to date them and know where they came from?

 

Beats me. I'm slowly reading through those links. You have as much information as I do. Where they came from is simple enough - wherever the various hoards are found.

 

Yeah but dating them might be a problem.

 

celtic silver stater of the durotriges ---south west England now the county of dorset--said to be the degraded head of Apollo -disjointed horse---issued 60 bc--ad 10

 

Wow I like it!

 

Here are coins that are apparently Danubian. They look a lot like the Kugelwange coins to me. Don't know if they have a connection or not but either way they are very cool.

 

Ive been looking at a book called Coinage of the Celtic World by Daphne Nash. I might buy it but for those of you who have read it do you think its a good idea? It seems like it focuses more on the older coins rather than the newer ones like Chris Rudd does but I dont know.

 

nice links bobl...I suspected some Philip ii influence here.

 

celtic silver stater of the iceni 10 bc--60 ad- double crescent reverse horse--the iceni lived in the east of england

 

Awesome! Thats a cool coin!

 

I'd just thought Id update you guys on my research. Sorry if you guys dont really care but if anything this is a good place to write down my research. This has not been easy but this is what Ive discovered. So there are four general areas of Celtic coins. North, South, East, and West. Each group has its own tribes. Now in the Eastern group there is a river called the Danube. A lot of times Kugelwange coins are just label as "Danubian Coins" but I think it can get more specific. There is a tribe near the Danube River called Syrmia. They are the ones that made the Kugelwange type coins. They also made Dachreiter type, Kapostal type, and I'm sure much more. I like all of the coins from Syrmia. I think all of the coins are Imitations of Phillip II coins. Okay thats all I got so far. If you guys have any more info or I am wrong and you can correct me that would be great!