Item number: A188
Year: 200-100 BC
Material: Gold
Size: 12 x 12 x 7.5 mm
Weight: 7.39 g
Provenance: Künker 2022
This golden coin is of the Gallo-Belgic bullet type, a ½ stater that appeared in the Gaul area, crafted by the Senones around the 2nd century BC to the early 1st century BC. A cross is observed on the obverse, while the reverse is plain. Chris Rudd, the author of Ancient British Coins, believed that this shape, resembling the royal orb, projected the power and divine sanction of the rulers who issued them.
This type of stater is primarily found on either side of the middle and lower Seine valley, mainly within the territories of the Carnutes, Senones, Aulerci, and Parisii. To the north, it is found among the Bellovaci, Suessiones, and Remi in Belgian Gaul, and westward through present-day Normandy and the Cotentin to the southern coast of the Isle of Britain. According to Louis-Pol Delestrée in “Un nouveau dépôt d’outils monétaires, retour sur les monnayages des Sénons,” the study argues that the workshops crafting these staters were mobile, activated by their sponsors and equipped with the monetary tools.
The function of these staters is still debated. Some argue that they served as gold coinage since the Senones did not mint gold coinage themselves. They were used for transactions, hoarding, ritual deposits, and possibly for other purposes, utilising ingots from the mining industry. Others claim they held a deeply cultural, political, and religious symbolic dimension. However, Fabien Pilon and Jean-Marc Séguier, authors of L’apport de l’analyse chimique des 31 statères globulaires « à la croix » de Varennes-sur-Seine (Seine-et-Marne) à la compréhension de ce (pseudo-)monnayage, counter this hypothesis by indicating that these staters are untrimmed and feature rudimentary iconography: a cross on one side, sometimes a torque, and a few letters on the other, which might represent marks from workshops or clients. Such a lack of detailed symbolism suggests that these objects might serve more as blanks (flans) rather than formal currency, and proposes that the Ardennes mining industry was the manufacturer. In this scenario, workshops, whether stationary or itinerant, might have acquired these mini-ingots of coinable gold to convert them into currency through minting, or to trade them as rough castings, functioning as “pseudo-coins.” The noted consistencies in the coinable gold used for both striking coins and casting the globules thus find a plausible explanation.
The crafters, the Senones, were a nomadic Celtic tribe that lived in the area now comprising the modern French départements of Seine-et-Marne, Loiret, and Yonne. From the 8th century BC to the 4th century BC, the Senones settled around the Loiret, Seine (Sena), Yonne, and Garonne rivers. Many of their warriors, alongside those from the Boii and Lingones tribes, crossed the Alps around the 4th century BC. They destroyed the Etruscan town of Meltum (Melzo), founded Milan, and settled along the Adriatic coast at Sena Gallica (now Senigallia). In 232 BC, Rome’s decision to evict the Senones led to the Gallic invasion of the Alps in 225 BC. They contributed warriors to the Celtic army during the siege of Alesia and were ultimately defeated and expelled by Publius Cornelius Dolabella in 283 BC.
