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Silver Plated Unit - Eastern North Thames Braughing Dragon Contemporary Counterfeit
| Issuer | Trinovantes tribe (Celtic Britain) |
|---|---|
| Year | 55 BC - 45 BC |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Orientation | Variable alignment ↺ |
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| Obverse description | A stylised boar facing left rendered in the Celtic abstract tradition, its body formed by a prominent cluster of pellets and curvilinear lines. The snout is elongated and duck-billed in form, a characteristic feature of this Braughing Dragon type. A pellet-in-ring ornament appears below the principal figure. A corded exergual line defines the lower border of the design field, consistent with contemporary Trinovantian die-cutting conventions. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | A coiled serpent or dragon depicted in the field, its body rendered as a tightly wound spiral composed of pellets and raised cordwork, characteristic of the abstract Celtic decorative idiom. The tail terminates in a distinctive tasselled or frilled appendage. A short zigzag line appears beneath the principal motif, serving as a ground line or decorative device. The overall composition is consistent with the Braughing Dragon series attributed to the Trinovantes of eastern Britain. |
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| Additional information |
Contemporary counterfeits of Trinovantian units — silver-plated bronze cores struck from dies copying official issues — circulated freely in pre-conquest Britain precisely because enforcement was nonexistent and the coins changed hands rapidly enough that detection was unlikely. This piece belongs to a documented class of locally produced forgeries, made not by outsiders but almost certainly within the same tribal territory, possibly by the same craftsmen who handled legitimate striking.
Caesar's two expeditions into Britain in 55 and 54 BC disrupted trade networks sufficiently to create coin shortages, and opportunistic plated issues filled gaps the official mint could not.