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Gold 1/4 Stater Sun and Moons Undertype
| Issuer | Atrebates and Regini tribes (Celtic Britain) |
|---|---|
| Year | 55 BC - 45 BC |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | 11 mm |
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| Obverse description | A stylised coffee-bean motif enclosed within an eye-shaped pellet cartouche, rendered in the abstract geometric vocabulary characteristic of Late Iron Age Celtic coinage. The design is only partially struck, a common feature of the quarter stater denomination, leaving elements of the composition cut off at the flan edge. The field surrounding the cartouche is plain, with no legend or inscription present. The motif is believed to derive ultimately from the laureate head of Apollo as transmitted through Macedonian prototypes, here reduced to its most schematic form. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Highly stylised disjointed horse moving to the right, with only the hindquarters and back legs clearly visible on the flan, the remainder of the design being lost beyond the irregular flan edge. A small arc or pellet grouping appears above the visible portion of the horse's body, typical of the decorative field elements found on Atrebatic quarter staters. No legend or inscription is present. The horse motif, ultimately derived from the quadriga on Macedonian gold staters of Philip II, has been transformed through successive copying into an elegant abstract composition characteristic of the Atrebates and Regini series. |
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| Additional information |
The Atrebates occupied territory straddling what is now Hampshire, Berkshire, and West Sussex, and their coinage tradition traces directly to Gallo-Belgic prototypes imported — or carried — across the Channel during the migrations and military movements of the mid-first century BC. The "undertype" designation here is the critical detail: it indicates a coin struck over an earlier flan, with ghosted traces of a prior design surviving beneath the surface, a practice that speaks to metal scarcity or production urgency rather than carelessness.
Caesar's two expeditions to Britain in 55 and 54 BC fall squarely within this issue's production window.