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Here is an entirely
new type of gold
quarter stater,
hitherto unpublished
and unrecorded. It
was found in Kent,
July 2008, and we
have called it
Eppillus King,
because it is
clearly how Eppillus
- brother of
Tincomarus - saw
himself and how he
wished to be seen.
Dr Philip de Jersey
says: "It’s not
often now that a
completely new type
of Iron Age coin
pops out of our
soil, but this
remarkable quarter
stater of Eppillus,
found earlier this
year, demonstrates
that it can still
happen. It is
perhaps even rarer
as a new inscribed
type, since the
clear majority of
new coinages of the
past ten or twenty
years have been
uninscribed. The
inscription leaves
no doubt as to who
issued the coin, and
the findspot is
helpful in pointing
us towards
Eppillus’s Kentish
kingdom, rather than
his territory around
Calleva. In terms of
its style, the
reverse is
reminiscent of
another unique
quarter stater of
this ruler, VA 436,
a coin acquired by
the British Museum
more than 150 years
ago (BMC 1129); the
horse is very
similar, although
the position of the
front legs is
different. The
obverse of this coin
is rather more
unusual when
compared to other
coinages of
Eppillus. It appears
to be the only
occasion when he
used a panel to
enclose the bold
inscription, and it
is also difficult to
parallel the
teardrop shapes
elsewhere in his
coinage. To my mind
the design recalls
some of the quarter
staters (e.g. VA
1786) and silver
units of Tasciovanos
(such as the stag
type (BNJ
1989, Coin Register,
no. 12), or the
Capricorn (BMC
1666)). Of course
it’s not impossible
that Tasciovanos’s
coinage influenced
the style of this
coin of Eppillus,
since their reigns
almost certainly
overlapped, even if
they were not
absolutely
contemporary. The
difficulty with a
relatively simple
design such as the
obverse here,
however, is to judge
what is genuinely
influence (and what
direction it goes
in), and what is
simply coincidence
in the choice of
fairly simple motifs
from a relatively
restricted
repertoire. But
rather than getting
too bogged down with
the minutiae, let’s
just enjoy this
remarkable discovery
– there are still
surprises in store,
even in those series
we think we know
quite well."
Chris Rudd's
November list. 6.10.08 |
