S5004030

54

G* and power m Lale Iron Ag* Bńtain

right to rule through the alliance of a leader and naturę, represented by the horse. Since in many ways this is a mystical union, the development of this imagery along lines associated with altered States of consciousness should not be seen as pariicularly surprising.

Conclusion

In chapter i I suggested that the Middle to Late Iron Age transit ion saw the development of a senes of individuals carving out dominion using smali bands of loyal horsemen. In this chapter I have suggested that this change was associated with the arrival of gold. The new powers in the land (either intrusive or setting thcmselves up above their peers) developed new strategies to assert their position using the display of gold torcs and the distribution of gold coin. However they also appro-priated existing ritual pracrices to legitimate their authority. So, for c>»mple, at Danebury votive deposition in grain storage pits continued, but was modi' ied: there were not so many as before, and morę included the deposition of horse ren. ins. This łdnd of panem, with an emphasis on the horse, fits nicely with the piet u derived from various analogous literary sources, which suggest a strong link b< ween the rituals of kingship and the concept of sovereignty embodied in the horse.

I believe that the head/horse image on early northera European coii. remained trenchantly on the coinage for so long because it symbolised a mystic union between the indmdual and sovereignty, representing ‘sacral kingship’. I also believe a case can be madę for seeing within this imagery metaphors relating to altered States of consciousness, perhaps suggesting that the powers of the trance world had also been inyoked to legitimate this new structure of authority.

Into this world came Caesar.

The Southern and Eastern kingdoms

For almost a cen tury a family of gold coinage derived from Gallo-Belgic A circulated in Britain, The conservatism within the imagery and colour during this time was xtraordinary. However, around the mid-first century BC a significant change took place. In the south-east, to judge by hoard evidence, much of this earlier coin ilisappeared, to be replaced by two totally new families of imagery. These were « , rived from Gallo-Belgic F, a Continental coin rarely found in Britain. The first

ries of issues are collectively called British Q (S5), and circulated in Hampshire and southem Berkshire. Within a generadon these coins had legends added to them, and we see them hailing the nam es of the Commian dynasty (S6-7). The coinage of the west (W5-9; the ‘Dobunni’) also derived from British Q. Meanwhile, in the east, a second series began with Bridsh L (E5-6), from which derived the coinage of Addedomarus (SE7), the Tasciovanian dynasty (£7-8), as well as some of the gold of East Anglia (EA6-7).

Not only do we find two totally new families of imagery beginning, repladng the exisdng stock of gold coin, but there was also a nodceable shift in the colour of that gold coin. The dominance of yellow gave way to red. Alongside the gold, silver coins came to be issued morę commonly. It was as if the yellow temary alloy had been rent asunder into two completely new metals: red-gold and white silver. It might be imagined that a slight change in colour is not terribly important, but two things weigh against that. First, the strongvisualimpactofthis change coincided with a shift in the naturę of the serial imagery, which within a subtie nuanced aesthedc would have been clearly significant. Second, ethnographic sources caution us to be wary of un d erestimating the symbolic values associated with colour. In Natal in the eariy nineteenth century, when brass was sdll a reladvely new arrival to the area, its yellow colour, madę it stand out from other copper alloys. At the same time as this new ‘European’ metal arrived, an epidemie struck the population. The colour of the new metal was blamed and over 500 pounds of the stuff was piled up and ‘sacrificed’ in the Umvolosi river. The colour had madę the brass strange and dangerous (Herbert 1984:289). So too in Britain the change in colour would have been no subtie alteration, but a elear and obvious symbolic statement. In a nuanced world, the combined transformadon of image and colour marks a major polidcal event.

This is also the time when Britain emerges from prehistory into history. It is the time when Julius Caesar's polidcal am bilion brought him through Gaul to the shores of Britannia and into our midst. The changes in the coinage were radical. They cannot be understood without an appreciation of the polidcal changes taking place at