Celtic Copper Alloy Coin Minting Technology: Experiential Approaches

Abstract

In this paper, details are presented for three technical approaches that can be employed in the reproduction of Celtic coins from Britain: 1) the use of pellet trays to produce coin blanks of standardised weight; 2) the use of successive iterations of clay moulds to shrink coin design images while retaining clarity; and 3) the use of a low-carbon steel die that was heated to a plastic state and struck with a cast bronze slug to imprint the design prior to hardening. The combination of these three approaches enabled reproductions that closely match coin finds in the archaeological record and may provide insight into coin minting processes from the Iron Age in Britain. Each of these three areas is described and details are provided for materials and tools employed. The place of coin minting technology as a collaboration between increasingly specialised industries in the context of the social transition from Middle Iron Age to Late Iron Age is briefly considered.

Keywords

• ancient technology
• coin
• iron age
• united kingdom