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Gold Stater Trefoil
| Issuer | Corieltauvi tribe (Celtic Britain) |
|---|---|
| Year | 45 BC - 10 BC |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | 5.5 g |
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| Obverse description | Central trefoil design composed of three stylised leaf-lobes radiating symmetrically around a central ring, within which six pellets encircle a single central pellet. The field is animated throughout by raised, parallel striations executed in the characteristic Late Iron Age Celtic artistic tradition, lending a textured, dynamic quality to the flan. No legend or inscription is present, consistent with pre-Roman British coinage of the Corieltauvi. The overall composition reflects the abstract, geometric decorative vocabulary typical of the region's stater coinage. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | A lunate horse is depicted moving to the left, rendered in the highly stylised, disjointed manner characteristic of Celtic British coinage of this period. A boot-shaped object is positioned beneath the body of the horse in the central field. Above the horse appear two confronted spirals, each encompassing pellets, forming the so-called anchor and phallus motif. Below the horse, a six-pointed star serves as a solar symbol. No legend or inscription is present, and the design is typical of the Abstract Horse series attributed to the Corieltauvi, paralleling closely the types catalogued as Van Arsdell 821 and ABC 1755. |
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| Additional information |
The Corieltauvi occupied a territory roughly corresponding to modern Lincolnshire and Leicestershire, and their coinage — including this stater — was produced without a mint in any conventional sense, likely struck at multiple dispersed locations across their tribal lands. Unlike southern British tribes who absorbed Gallo-Belgic coin types wholesale, the Corieltauvi developed increasingly abstract derivatives over generations, each step further removed from the original Macedonian prototype until the horse and chariot imagery became almost unrecognizable geometry. The trefoil designation refers to a specific pellet arrangement that distinguishes this die grouping within the broader Corieltauvian series.