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Gold Stater Freckenham Cross Wheel Type
| Issuer | Iceni tribe (Celtic Britain) |
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| Year | 15 BC - 20 AD |
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| Shape | Round (irregular) |
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| Obverse description | Plain, uninscribed field featuring a pellet cross design composed of groups of raised pellets arranged in cruciform formation. The surface is devoid of any legend or additional decorative elements, characteristic of the abstract Celtic artistic tradition. The flan is irregular in shape, as typical of hammered Iron Age coinage, with a slightly convex profile. The pellets are arranged symmetrically to suggest a cross motif, reflecting the Freckenham type's distinctive minimalist obverse design. |
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| Reverse description | A stylized horse depicted in motion to the right, rendered in the abstract Celtic manner with a large, open head. Above the horse, a corded crescent ornament is present, while a four-spoked wheel appears beneath the crescent in the upper field. A prominent eight-spoked wheel is positioned below the horse in the lower field, serving as a key diagnostic feature of this Freckenham type. The overall composition is characteristic of Late Iron Age Icenian coinage, with highly schematized imagery derived from earlier continental prototypes. |
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| Additional information |
The Freckenham Cross Wheel type takes its name from the Freckenham hoard, found in Suffolk in 1865, which contained over 150 gold staters and remains one of the most significant concentrations of Late Icenian coinage ever recovered. By the time these were struck, the Iceni were operating under client-kingdom arrangements with Rome following Caesar's expeditions, and gold coinage increasingly served internal tribal elite functions rather than broad exchange — explaining the relatively tight geographic distribution of finds.
Van Arsdell 624-01 is among the better-documented Late Icenian die links, with a small number of confirmed die-sharing relationships traceable across the ABC corpus.