These date from around 606-508 BC and show that boats were important to the Celts for religious reasons. The boat has striking similarities to the votive Roos Carr boat and figurines found in Britain in 1836.In particular, the quarter staters the boat first appeared on, Gallo-Belgic Ca2, are found in great numbers on both sides of the English channel, and were produced at a time where Gallo-Belgic Ca coins were being shipped in great quantities to Britain to pay for mercenaries (who would have to travel by boat to Gaul) The original coins with the boat were minted by the Morini – “the people of the sea” – and boats were likely to be important to them.In particular, the hind quarters are generally convincing Even when extremely abstracted, they generally managed to draw the right number of legs (accounting for perspective), and draw them in the correct places. While this might be the case, the arguments for it are not very strong, and the arguments for it being a boat are much more convincing: These coins are occasionally turned upside down and described as a boar instead of a boat. It is generally assumed that many of the symbols on the abstract Celtic coins represent the sun, the stars and the moon, and probably do so for religious reasons. Lunar and Solar Imagery or Something More? The third theory is that the horse featured prominently in Celtic mythology, and I’ll cover than next. The second theory about why the horse was used so often is that the horse was a symbol of the warrior elite in Celtic society, and these were the people minting and receiving the high-value gold coins. The Germanic tribes weren’t Celts, but it is possible that similar beliefs were held by them at the time. No kind of omen inspires greater trust, not only among the common people, but even among the nobles and priests, who think that they themselves are but servants of the gods, whereas the horses are privy to the gods’ counsels. The priest and the king, or the chief of the state, yoke them to a sacred chariot and walk beside them, taking note of their neighs and snorts. These horses are kept at the public expense in the sacred woods and groves that I have mentioned they are pure white and unclefiled by any toil in the service of man. Tacticus says of the Germanic tribes in 98 AD:Īlthough the familiar method of seeking information from the cries and the flight of birds is known to the Germans, they have also a special method of their own – to try to obtain omens and warnings from horses. The first is that the horse had religious connotations, such as being the symbol of an important God (to do with money or the purpose of money), or by being a liminal animal that could provide a conduit to the gods. There are three major theories about this, and all could be correct at the same time. Even in the case of the Gallo-Belgic E staters, which were minted in their millions while Caesar was invading Gaul, the Celts faithfully maintained a horse on the reverse rather than just produce blank, or simplified, coins. There were plenty of Greek coins without horses that they could have copied, and they could have abandoned the horse at any stage, but on gold staters, which were the most prestigious of coins, this was rarely done. It’s not clear why the horse was chosen as the dominant animal on Celtic coins. Specifically, the focus is only on coins created after the Celts had transitioned beyond just copying the original prototype, but before they started adopting Romanised images. There are too many Celtic coins to try and discuss them all, so the focus here is restricted to some of the coins from Gaul and Britain. More than that though, having some theories about the meanings makes the coins more interesting to collect, and not being sure what they mean can lead the collector into studying Celtic history and art. There are some basic questions that the images could help to answer, such as who minted the coin, when and why. However, just because a problem is hard doesn’t mean it should just be ignored. As no theories can ever be proven to be correct, some numismatists avoid reading any meaning at all into the images.
The problem is that the Celts didn’t write anything down, and the only people who could confirm any theories have been dead for 2,000 years. There has been plenty of speculation about the meaning of the imagery on Celtic coins, but no real consensus has been reached.
“This need to look behind the surface of Celtic coin types has made a happy hunting ground for the crankish interpreter in pursuit of devious religious symbolism” Further Reading About the Art on Celtic Coins
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