Three Celtic coins found together in a Roman ditch on a site in Hertfordshire have raised some interesting questions about the circulation of Iron Age coins into the early Roman period.
They are copies of Gallo-Belgic C staters issued by the Ambiani of northern Gaul, dated to 100–60 BC. These coins are among the earliest gold coins known from southern Britain.
The Hertfordshire examples follow the familiar design: a stylised head facing right on the obverse and a stylised horse on the reverse. However, they are not solid gold but plated staters, base-metal coated with a thin layer of gold.
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Interestingly, all three coins were struck from the same pair of dies, suggesting they were produced and probably circulated together before being deposited in the upper fills of the ditch during the 1st century AD.
Plated staters are generally interpreted as contemporary imitations or forgeries. While they are known, small die-linked groups such as this are rarely recorded.
PCA recently recovered another comparable group from a ditch on a site in Buckinghamshire: four plated staters copying the coinage of Cunobelinus, again deposited during the 1st century AD.
Taken together, these finds raise an interesting possibility. They may simply relate to coin-forging activity nearby, with defective or surplus pieces ending up in ditch fills. However, they could also point to a previously unrecognised practice of Celtic coin deposition. For now, we can’t say whether this marks the beginnings of a wider pattern or simply coincidence. If other examples have been recorded we would be very interested to hear about them.
