Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
Denier or Quinarius with helmeted head and carnyxes
| Issuer | Aulerci Cenomani |
|---|---|
| Year | 80 BC - 50 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Hammered |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Stylized male head facing left, wearing a crested and plumed helmet with a raised visor, rendered in the abstract Celtic artistic tradition. The surface of the head is decorated with granulated pellets, a hallmark of Aulerci Cenomani coinage. Bold, schematic facial features are characteristic of the Gaulish die-cutting style of the late La Tène period. No legend or inscription appears in the field. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | ND (80 BC - 50 BC) |
| Additional information |
The Aulerci Cenomani occupied the territory around present-day Le Mans, a Gaulish civitas that maintained closer diplomatic ties with Rome than most of their neighbors — a relationship that almost certainly influenced the strongly Romanized imagery this people chose for their coinage. The carnyx, a bronze war trumpet used in battle to unsettle enemies, appears here not as decoration but as a deliberate assertion of martial identity at a moment when Roman military pressure on Gaul was intensifying toward Caesar's campaigns.
The quinarius denomination itself was borrowed directly from the Roman monetary system, an unusually frank adoption for a Gaulish issuer.