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Potin with Indian head

Issuer Remi
Year 180 BC - 150 BC
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Shape Round (irregular)
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Reverse description Stylized bull or boar depicted in a highly schematic Celtic artistic tradition, shown in profile facing right or left, with the body rendered through a series of curved, concentric arc lines suggesting the animal's haunches and back. The limbs are indicated by simplified linear projections beneath the body mass. The design occupies most of the flan, with no legend or border present. The overall execution is characteristic of the cast potin coinage attributed to the Remi tribe of Belgic Gaul.
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Edge Plain
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Additional information

The Remi were a Belgic tribe occupying the territory around modern Reims, and their potin coinage represents some of the earliest cast — rather than struck — currency produced in northeastern Gaul. The so-called "Indian head" type takes its name from 19th-century collectors who saw resemblance to contemporary American imagery, a label that stuck despite having no iconographic relevance to the actual prototype, which derives from Mediterranean coin types filtered through generations of Gaulish abstraction.

Potin itself — a tin-rich bronze alloy — was the dominant coinage medium among Belgic tribes precisely because it could be cast in clay moulds rather than requiring the infrastructure of a proper mint.

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