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Coins and power in Late Iron Age Britain 42

This effect was the primary driving lorce behind the technical work of West Mexican smiths. Their aim was to visually recreate in the everyday world the shimmeringcolours and brilliance of the sacred domain. This could best be done by ' makingthings from gold or silver, but if this was not possible, then other alloys had to fit the purpose and ful hi this cultural need.

Hosler’s work on the metallurgy of the Tarascan has demonstrated the high degree of skill with which these craftsmen were imbued. Copper was alloyed with gold, silver, tin and arsenie into a variety of materials suited to different technological l purposes; and yet when it came to artefacts for status display, such as bells, ornamen*j tal shields, rings and tweezers, all were fashioned in alloys with far morę arsenie or tin than technological demands reąuircd to optimise performance. But what these alloys did do was enhance the golden and silvery appearance of the otherwise red copper. i

The importance of metallic colours, especially of gold and silver, in myth, shamanistic performance, cosmological schema and political ideology has been demonstrated for the central Andes and Columbia... The West Mexican experiment is unique in that the ardsans achieved these culturally required golden and silvery colours through the unusual technical cxpedient , of using the high-arsenic and high-tin bronzes. Although the mechanical properties of these alloys were required by the design characteristics of the object, their colors were a matter of choice, accomplished by adding the alloying element in high concentrations.

(Hosler 1995:102)

As well as colour, the importance of sound from bells was an imperative in design, ] and again special alloys were used depending upon the purposes and desired effeets. ] All in all, apart from a very limited number of utilitarian artefacts, the vast majority of objects fashioned by the Tarascan craftsmen were created within a clearly defined symbolic framework, with colours and sounds related to the shimmering sacred garden of the dream-world.

In expressing and constructing ideologics and systems of belief, the wealth of gold and silver in certain areas of central and Andean America resulted in this cult of brilliance. In relatively impoverished Britain, with its scarce precious metal re-sources, the same will not be true, but there ąre similarities. The first is the desire for the golden-yellow colour with the consequent manipulation of alloys both of gold and of copper to achieve it. But what about copper-alloy artefacts? Brooches were at times manufactured from imported brass because of its golden appearance. When the brass supply ran out, morę leaded bronzes came into use. These did not have the same yellowy appearance as brass, but were a duller, reddy brown morę prone to tamishing. The consequence was both the development of tinning, to cover up the new colour and create a silvery effect, and the inereased use of enamel to produce new vibrant colours (Megaw and Megaw 1989:21). A second similarity is that many coins have what may be symbols for the sun and moon (Allen 1980:149), including crescents and a v arie ty of sun, Wheel or flower-like motifs. Astrological dcvices also occur on two other types of artefacts: anthropomorphic swords and spoons. Late

I ron Age anthropomorphic thort swords havc recently becn discussed by Fitzpatrick (19968). The long sword wat the mott common weapon found in Middle and Late Iron Age Europę, but a smali proportion were thort swords, a subset of which had anthropomorphic handlet, and a subset of these had circular and crescent punch marka stamped into their hilts, often inlaid with gold, silver and various copper alloys (alas not analysed). This very specific weapon recurred over a large geographical area ovcr perhaps 300 years (though most are second-first cen tury BC). Fitzpatńck interpreted them as being symbols of the moon (fuli and pardal) linked with Gallic observance of the calendar. He tenuously suggested they might relate to vcry specific rituals such aa druidic sacrifice (whenever anyone mentions druids, they seem to do it very tenuously). These weapons with their special as trał symbols are also curious, as the extremely rare short sword appears far morę freąucntly on coin than the long sword (e.g. the coinage of Normandy and Limousin; Allen 1980:146).

This M1A/L1A thirst for colour and the as trał signs is suggestive, but we must recall where the Central and Andean American thirst for these colours came from; they were a direct conseąuence of a metalworking tradition trying to reereate the colours and vibrancy of their trance world. So do we have any evidence at all for commensurate practices in Late La Tene Europę? The quotation from Budd and Taylor (1995) above should already have alerted us to the link in many societies between magie, ritual and metallurgy, and the fact that several Euro pean myths about metalworkers involve shamanistic elements.

As it happens, there is evidence which suggests that the trance experience was a practice informing the development of visual language in northem Europę and Britain. Discussion of altered States of consciousness (ASCs) in prehistory has advanced significantly over the last decade. This discussion has moved forward in two areas; first, the idendfication of botanical remains with pharmacological and psychotropic effects from sites, and second, discussion rcladng ASCs to prehistorie art. The former has been drawn attention to by Sherratt (1987,1991; Goodman et al. 1995), whilst the latter became an active area of debate aft er the publication of some work on rock art by Lewis-Williams and Dowson (1988; 1993). I will first outłine the evidence for trance imagery informing the visual language of the MIA/L1A, and then discuss the ways that ASCs may have been achieved.

First, we need to understand the naturę and effect upon the individual of halluci-nations and trances. Trance experiences recorded in pre-industrial societies tend to have a number of common themes. One is that of anggsociadon with an animal form; indeed, the individual entering a trance often feels he/she is becoming that animal. Many societies havc strong symbiotic links with various animals, or else hołd some species in the wild as being sacred. The spirit of these animals is held to be of supreme importance, so that when a person goes into a trance often they j>erceive themselves as becoming that animal. For the Bushmen of Southern Africa n varicty of animals held a special importance, depending upon the pardcular shaman and the ecological ni che within which they and their respective animals lived. Some shampns con-sidered the giraffe to be powerful, where as others specialised in warthog medicine; but perhaps the most dominant and powerful animal was the eland. This animal was