File:4. Iron Age Coin, Uninscribed Gaulish silver drachm (FindID 715796).jpg

A group of two gold and five silver coins of late 2nd to early 1st century BC date. The five silver coins are all Gaulish types.

1. Gold uninscribed stater. 5.52g, 18.91mm.

2. Silver drachm 'au style languedocien' attributed to the Longstaletes of the Narbonne area. 3.10g, 16.76mm.

3. Probable silver drachm 'au style languedocien' attributed to the Longstaletes of the Narbonne area. 3.29g, 14.60mm.

4. Silver drachm, probably central west Gaul. 3.08g, 16.75mm.

5. Silver drachm, probably central west Gaul. 2.78g, 18.04mm.

6. Silver unit, fragment, attributed to the Aulerci Cenomani, northern Gaul/Armorican border. Head of Pallas Athena on the obverse. c80-50BC. 0.82g, 13.12mm.

7. Gold uninscribed stater, British A / ABC 482 / VA 202, circa Gallic War period. 6.23g, 20.01mm.

~~Associated objects:

1. Copper alloy toggle
Description: Short length of cylindrical copper alloy rod, broken at both ends. The hollow centre is filled with a greyish material of sandy consistency, probably a clay core from casting. In the centre of the length of rod is a pair of transverse 'lips'. These project on one side, narrowing into thinner projections that probably once formed a loop, now broken.

Parallels: This is probably a fragment from a looped toggle of late Iron Age to early Roman date, similar to an example from Camerton (Jackson 1990, 40, no. 87). There are numerous parallels on the PAS (see e.g.: SUR-732BE5, YORYM-640610, NLM-372D91, IOW-D9EA47, BH-E2B980, KENT-C8D3F5, BH-DF0343, CPAT-6BF207, YORYM-40E033, LEIC-69D617, SF-42377B, CPAT-6BF207). When complete, the object would have taken the form of a cylindrical bar, perhaps with moulded decoration, with a loop projecting from the centre. The fragment which has survived is the central section of the toggle, with two projections forming the start of the loop. This type of toggle is widely distributed across southern Britain, and most likely dates from the first century BC to first century AD.

Dimensions:
Weight: 9.65g
Length: 18.7mm
Height: 17.1mm
Diameter of 'lips': 13.4mm
Distance between projections: 9.4mm
 
2. Copper alloy bridle-bit side link
Description: Copper alloy link from a snaffle bit, comprising a central spherical bead or collar, with a short shank projecting on either side. Each shank originally lead to a circular loop, although both loops are now broken, and show heavy wear. The loops are at right angles to one another. The short shanks linking the central bead to the loops are heavily worn, but seem to have originally been reel-shaped (i.e. waisted near the centre) and circular in cross-section.

Parallels: The style is not closely paralleled in Palk's (1984) corpus of bridle-bits from Britain, although a closely comparable example was recovered from excavations at Elm's farm in Essex, (Major 2015, Figure 520.1) from a Late Iron Age context with some contamination from Roman levels. As the two loops are in perpendicular planes, this is most likely the side link from a double-jointed bit (originally having two side links and a connecting central link). In this case, the central bead is unusual, since this feature normally appears on the central link (which has the loops at each end in the same plane), rather than the side links. Alternatively this could be a link from a single-jointed bit (one with two links which meet in the middle, without a separate connector), although it seems too short for this purpose. This fragment cannot be closely dated, since double-jointed snaffle bits were produced over a long period of time, from the third century to the first century BC (Palk 1984, 80).

Dimensions:
Weight: 26g
Length: 58.7mm
Maximum remaining width of link head: 17.8mm
Diameter of central bead: 14.9mm

3. Harness brooch
Description: Flat copper alloy openwork plate, taking the form of a U-shape (with slightly flaring ends), seated within three sides of a rectangular border. This leaves open triangles (each with one concave side) between the curved sides of the 'U' and the right-angled corners of the rectangular border.
On the reverse, two narrow rectangular strap loops are affixed to the top of the arms of the 'U'. One has broken, and appears to have been repaired in antiquity with a cast addition through the plate. At the bottom on the reverse, in the corners of the rectangular border, are fittings for an iron pin: a pair of lugs forming a hinge, and a curved catch-plate. A circular iron rivet passes through the pierced lugs, but the iron pin itself is now missing. The catch-plate is U-shaped, open at the top, suggesting that the flat bar of the rectangular border was the bottom of the object.
On the front, the three straight border edges each have a central incised line. A fourth incised line runs across the top of the terminals of the 'U'. The inner edges are broken away, leaving open the possibility that a border strip once continued across the top of the (now open) 'U'. The upper surface of the U is decorated with a symmetrical curvilinear design in 'Mirror style', made up of interlocking positive and negative motifs. Darker areas are delimited with lightly incised guidelines and stippling. The motifs used include crescent shapes, trumpets (triangular shapes with two concave sides and one convex side) and spiralling knob-ended waves/tendrils.

Parallels: The closest parallels in terms of both decorative style and reverse fittings are the Late Iron Age harness brooches from Ashdown (BM 1880,0618.1) and the Polden Hills hoard (BM 1889,0706.78, 79, and 1846,0322.112-3; see Palk 1992, 124-6, 560-1). Harness brooches are flat decorative plates, sometimes with openwork elements, with two sets of fittings on the reverse: a hinge and catchplate for a pin, and either one or two narrow rectangular strap loops. The function of this small corpus of objects in unclear. Palk (1992, 125) follows the idea of a connection with horse harness, based on the association with harness fittings in the Polden Hill hoard. She concludes that the pin suggests that the brooch was attached to fabric, perhaps being used "to decorate the junction of fabric with a leather strap, and/or to fix and mediate the passage of a leather strap over fabric." Fox (Fox 1952, 54) suggested that the brooches could have been pinned to a blanket placed over the back of a pony, perhaps for use in guiding crupper straps. This kind of harnessing arrangements may be based on a Roman model, since harness brooches (albeit of a very different form) are known from Roman contexts e.g. Fremington Hagg, Hod Hill and Wroxeter (see Palk 1992, 126). The mirror-style design on this piece suggests a date in the first century BC or AD. The closest parallels, in the Polden Hill hoard, are thought to date to the mid-first century AD.

Dimensions:
Weight: 30g
Maximum length: 65.3mm
Maximum width: 46.6mm
Maximum thickness (including fittings): 11.3mm
Thickness of decorated plate: 2.4mm

Discussion
The Iron Age coins and objects detailed in this report were most likely deposited around the late first century BC or perhaps, especially given the possible association of the Flavian coin fragment, in the first century AD.
Iron Age hoards including harness and strap fittings have been found throughout Britain, for example at Polden Hill, Santon, and Seven Sisters. These assemblages represent a well-established group of largely copper alloy, often fragmented, mixed object hoards dating from the mid-first century BC to mid-first century AD (Garrow and Gosden 2012, 155-193). The objects presented in this report can be considered a similar deposit, although much smaller in scale. The association of coins with such a deposit is more unusual, and it is possible that the coins and objects represent separate hoards. Watery locations often formed areas of repeated deposition in the Iron Age, with several hoards deposited in the same location.

These were found in the same field as a hoard of 24 Roman coins from the 1st and 2nd century, reported under the same Treasure number, 2015 T256, but catalogued separately (SUR-D97C94).

References
Fox, C. 1952. Triskeles, palmettes and horse-brooches. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 18: 17-54.
Garrow, D. and Gosden, C. 2012. Technologies of Enchantment. Exploring Celtic Art: 400 BC to AD 100. Oxford University Press: Oxford.
Jackson, R.1990. Camerton: The Late Iron Age and Early Roman Metalwork. London: British Museum Press
Major, H. 2015. An overview of the small finds assemblage, in M. Atkinson and S.J. Preston 'Heybridge: A Late Iron Age and Roman Settlement, Excavations at Elms Farm 1993-5', Internet Archaeology 40. <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.11141/ia.40.1.major6">https://dx.doi.org/10.11141/ia.40.1.major6</a>

Palk, N., 1984. Iron Age bridle bits from Britain. Edinburgh, Department of Archaeology.
Palk, N., 1992. Metal horse harness of the British and Irish Iron Ages. Unpublished DPhil thesis, University of Oxford.