Catalog
Gold Stater Snettisham Rings Type
| Issuer | Iceni tribe (Celtic Britain) |
|---|---|
| Year | 15 BC - 5 AD |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Stater (1) |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | A highly stylised horse advancing to the right, rendered in the characteristic abstract Celtic idiom. The head is open and schematically depicted, with a beaded mane that loops back above the head terminating in a pellet-in-ring motif. The animal displays a double tail and doubled upper foreleg lines, typical decorative conventions of this type. A cornucopia motif — interpreted by some authorities as a vestigial wing — appears above the horse's back, while additional pellet-in-ring ornaments are disposed in the field to the front and below the horse. The composition is anepigraphic throughout, the field otherwise plain. |
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
The Snettisham Rings type takes its name from the great Snettisham hoard complex in Norfolk, where repeated metal-detector and excavation finds from the 1940s onward revealed extraordinary quantities of Iceni torcs, gold alloy ingots, and coin material buried together — almost certainly votive deposits rather than emergency concealment. The association between this stater type and that ritual landscape is not incidental; these coins appear to have circulated within a prestige economy tied as much to religious obligation as to trade.
Production falls in the generation immediately preceding Boudica's revolt of 60–61 AD, when Iceni tribal authority was still intact and issuing coinage independently.