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Gold Stater - Belgae Cheriton Smiler
| Issuer | Atrebates and Regini tribes (Celtic Britain) |
|---|---|
| Year | 65 BC - 55 BC |
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| Currency | Stater |
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| Obverse description | Highly stylised and abstracted derivation of a laureate head, rendered in the La Tène Celtic artistic tradition. The facial features are dissolved into a series of sinuous curvilinear lines and comma-shaped pellets, with sweeping arc motifs representing the hair fanning outward across the field. A prominent S-curve element occupies the central zone, flanked by ridged linear bands suggesting the neck or drapery below. A small annulet is visible in the lower field, and a beaded arc frames the right periphery, typical of the Cheriton type. The design is uninscribed and entirely anepigraphic. |
|---|---|
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
The Cheriton Smiler group sits within the broader Gallo-Belgic import tradition, struck during a period when cross-Channel trade and tribal politics were driving significant coinage movement into southern Britain. These staters derived ultimately from Macedonian gold — Philip II's coinage filtered through Gaul across generations of stylistic degradation, each copying tribe abstracting the prototype further until the original forms dissolved into the curvilinear geometry characteristic of British Celtic work.
ABC#755 places this type firmly among the later Gallo-Belgic derivatives attributed to the Atrebates heartland around modern Hampshire and West Sussex, predating Caesar's invasions by only a decade or so — a period when tribal identity and coinage were becoming increasingly entangled.