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later, perhaps the indirect consequences of, say, the German campaigns of
Augustus, the provincialisation of Gaul or Augustan diplomacy.
This reading of the continuity of the archaeological evidence was under-
standable. However, it overlooked a series of radical changes that can be
seen in the coinage, which suggest a signifi cant alteration in the symbolic lan-
guage of political authority, even if that did not lead to any immediate shift
in the day-to-day patterns of existence for the majority of the population.
Three totally independent transformations can be seen in the numismatic
record, each of which suggests there was a large-scale political change within
(or imposed on) southeast Britain in the mid fi rst century BC (Creighton
2000: 55–74). The imagery on the coinage changed, their metallurgy and
colour changed, and these new issues totally replaced all preceding coins in
circulation.
Gold coin had already been circulating in quantity in southeast Britain for
perhaps a century, with some types of coin having a distribution area on
both sides of the English Channel. The imagery had been remarkably con-
servative, with successive issues mimicking earlier ones, but slightly altering
the abstracted design on each occasion of what had originally been a head
on one side and a horse on the other. However, in the mid fi rst century
BC there was a break in that lineal continuity, and two new series emerged
(called British L and British Q). While the image still had an abstract face
on one side and a horse on the other as earlier issues had done, the nature
of that abstraction was different from the existing coinage in Britain. In an
aesthetic system where incremental change dominated the visual language,
this alteration would have been very obvious. Instead of adapting a local
coin type, these new series owed a lot in their design to a continental coin
(Gallo-Belgic F) which had circulated in the region of the Aisne valley in
northern France, traditionally ascribed to the tribe of the Suessiones. Both
new coin types can be seen to be the founding issues of two new dynasties.
As British L developed in the east it began to be inscribed with the names of
rulers such as Tasciovanus and Cunobelin. As British Q came to dominate
the south, it was marked with the names of another dynasty, starting with
Commius and Tincomarus. So the mid fi rst century saw the emergence of
dynastic coinage – in each case replacing earlier series with a new form of
imagery. It appears as though something of genuine political signifi cance had
happened. This view is reinforced by two other numismatic observations.
The second change we see is a transformation at the same time in the gold
content of these new series. In antiquity few objects were made of refi ned
gold; most were ternary alloys of gold, silver and copper, all of which had
slightly different colours. Whereas the earlier coins had a yellowy hue with
a fairly variable gold content, the new series were now made of a red-gold
alloy, which had a far more stable proportion of gold in it. The difference in
tone is very noticeable if any coins are seen side by side in a museum. This,
again, signifi ed change, not only visually in terms of colour, but perhaps also
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