Minim 'Atrebatic A' - Concave Square

Minims of this type were struck in the quarter-century before Roman administrative control reshaped southern British coinage entirely. The Atrebates and Regini, occupying territory roughly equivalent to modern Hampshire, West Sussex, and Berkshire, maintained a mint tradition with strong Gaulish roots — the Atrebates were, after all, a tribe present on both sides of the Channel, with continental kinsmen Caesar had already subdued by the mid-50s BC. That political pressure almost certainly accelerated the fragmentation of coinage into these tiny fractional denominations, as tribal economies contracted and hoarding intensified.

At 0.4g, these were the smallest unit of account in the regional series. Losses in excavation are near-total; metal detector recovery accounts for virtually every known example.