Iron Age British Coinage

Iron Age British coinage refers to the coins used and produced in Britain before and shortly after the Roman invasion of 43 CE. It began with gold staters imported from northern Gaul in the second century BCE and developed into locally made gold, silver, bronze and cast potin coins, many of them inscribed with the names of tribal rulers in the decades before the conquest.

These coins are one of the main sources for the political history of late Iron Age Britain, since they record rulers and places that are otherwise known, if at all, only from brief mentions by Roman writers.

The first coins to reach Britain in significant numbers were broad gold staters struck by the Belgic tribes of northern Gaul, described under Gaulish coinage. Their designs descended, through many generations of copying, from the gold stater of Philip II of Macedon, with a stylised head of Apollo on one side and a disjointed horse on the other. Numismatists group them into a sequence of types, conventionally labelled Gallo-Belgic A to F, which arrived over the second and first centuries BCE and may reflect trade, alliances, gifts and payments to warriors.

Among the earliest coins made in Britain were cast potin coins from Kent and the Thames area, often called Thurrock-type potins. They were made from a high-tin copper alloy poured into strips of clay moulds, and their designs, a head and a butting bull, derive from coins of Massalia (Marseille). Their dating is debated, but they are usually placed in the late second or early first century BCE.

Before long, British workshops began striking their own gold staters and quarter-staters based on Gallo-Belgic models. Regional styles emerged in different parts of the country, associated by modern scholars with tribes such as the Atrebates and Regni in the south, the Cantiaci in Kent, the Trinovantes and Catuvellauni north of the Thames, the Iceni in East Anglia, the Corieltauvi in the East Midlands, the Dobunni in the west and the Durotriges in Dorset.

From the second half of the first century BCE many coins carried names in Latin letters, a sign of growing contact with Rome. Commius, an Atrebatic leader known from Caesar's writings, and later rulers styling themselves his sons, such as Tincomarus and Verica, struck coins in the south. Tasciovanus issued coins from Verulamium (St Albans). His successor Cunobelinus, the most prolific issuer, struck gold staters with an ear of barley and the mint name CAMV for Camulodunum (Colchester). Some later coins copy Roman types closely, and some rulers used the Latin title REX (king).

Silver and bronze denominations multiplied in this period, giving a more flexible system of money alongside high-value gold. The Durotriges, by contrast, produced increasingly debased silver staters and eventually cast bronze, an example of currency debasement in a regional economy.

How these coins were used is still discussed. Gold was probably used for high-status payments, gifts, tribute and offerings, while smaller silver and bronze coins point to some market exchange in a society long used to barter and payment in goods. Many coins come from ritual sites and hoards. A hoard of around 5,000 Iron Age coins, mostly of the Corieltauvi, was excavated at a hilltop shrine at Hallaton in Leicestershire in the early 2000s. Thousands of individual finds have been recorded by metal-detectorists through the Portable Antiquities Scheme, greatly improving knowledge of where each type circulated.

After the Claudian invasion of 43 CE, native coinage stopped in the south and east as Roman currency, including the denarius, the sestertius and the as, took over. Some client kingdoms, notably the Iceni, appear to have struck coins for a short time longer, probably until the revolt of Boudica around 60 to 61 CE. Iron Age coins form the first chapter in the history of British money that eventually led, many centuries later, to pound sterling.

• Portable Antiquities Scheme
• British Museum