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Tetradrachm Dachreiter Type
| Issuer | Uncertain Eastern European Celts |
|---|---|
| Year | 300 BC - 201 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Tetradrachm (4) |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Celticised laureate head to right, rendered in a highly stylised barbarian interpretation of Hellenistic portraiture; the effigy is beardless and adorned with a pearl diadem beneath a distinctive three-row helmet-shaped laurel wreath. The facial features are abstracted in characteristic Celtic artistic convention, with exaggerated linear detailing replacing naturalistic modelling. The hair is rendered in schematic locks or pellets radiating from the crown, consistent with Eastern Celtic coinage of the period. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | A highly stylised horseman galloping to left, depicted in the abstracted Celtic graphic tradition derived from Macedonian prototype coinage; the rider wears a helmet with a short crest and sits astride a horse rendered with schematic limbs and body. A Y-shaped symbol appears in the field before the horse, serving as a characteristic mint or die marker. The overall composition reflects progressive Celticisation of the original Macedonian tetradrachm reverse type, with figural elements reduced to near-abstract forms. |
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| Additional information |
The "Dachreiter" — literally "roof rider" — designation comes from the distinctive abstract horseman that Celtic die-cutters derived from the Philip II tetradrachm prototype, distorting the original Macedonian imagery across generations of copying until it became something entirely its own. These eastern Celtic coinages circulated across a broad arc from the middle Danube into the Carpathian basin, used by tribal confederacies whose political structures left no written record. Attribution to a specific tribe remains genuinely unsettled; Göbl's typological framework organizes them by die relationships rather than issuer, which is the honest approach given the evidence.