The Parisii occupied the Seine basin around what is now Paris — Lutetia Parisiorum in Roman sources — and issued these cast potin pieces in the decades immediately preceding Julius Caesar's Gallic campaigns. After the Parisii joined Vercingetorix's coalition against Rome, their capacity to issue coinage effectively ended with the collapse of organized Gaulish resistance around 52 BC, making the production window for this type extremely compressed.
Cast rather than struck, potin coins like this one were produced by pouring molten alloy into clay or stone molds, often in linked chains that leave a characteristic casting sprue scar.
The Parisii occupied the Seine basin around what is now Paris — Lutetia Parisiorum in Roman sources — and issued these cast potin pieces in the decades immediately preceding Julius Caesar's Gallic campaigns. After the Parisii joined Vercingetorix's coalition against Rome, their capacity to issue coinage effectively ended with the collapse of organized Gaulish resistance around 52 BC, making the production window for this type extremely compressed.
Cast rather than struck, potin coins like this one were produced by pouring molten alloy into clay or stone molds, often in linked chains that leave a characteristic casting sprue scar.