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Tetradrachm Unfaithful Legend Type
| Issuer | Uncertain Eastern European Celts |
|---|---|
| Year | 300 BC - 201 BC |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | 13.64 g |
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| Obverse description | Celticized laureate head of Zeus facing right, rendered in a bold, stylized Celtic interpretation of the Macedonian prototype. The hair is depicted as a mass of thick, flowing locks rendered with deeply cut parallel striations, surmounted by a prominent laurel wreath with elongated leaves. The beard is rendered as a series of rounded pellets and curling forms, and the facial features — including the pronounced nose, open lips, and globular eye — display the characteristic abstraction of Eastern Celtic die-cutting. The entire design is enclosed within a beaded border. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | A rider on horseback moving to the right, depicted in a vigorous Celtic schematic style derived from the Macedonian Philip II tetradrachm type. The horse is shown with forelegs raised in a prancing posture, with the body rendered in bold relief and the legs reduced to stylized forms. The rider sits astride the horse and appears to hold a palm branch, though the figure is highly abstracted. A pseudo-legend reading ΙΛ-OV, a Celtic imitation of the original Greek inscription, is disposed around the type in the field. The design is enclosed within a beaded border, with a ground line beneath the horse. |
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| Additional information |
Celtic coinages derived from Macedonian prototypes degraded deliberately and rapidly — not from incompetence, but because Celtic die-cutters were reinterpreting Greek imagery through an entirely different visual vocabulary. The "Unfaithful Legend" designation refers specifically to coins where the Greek inscription was copied by engravers who could not read Greek, producing garbled letter-forms that progressively detached from any readable text across successive die generations.
Attributing these to a specific tribe remains unresolved. The Kostial reference places this within a broad Eastern European grouping, but hoards containing similar types have surfaced across a corridor stretching from the middle Danube into the Carpathian Basin.