Pre-Roman Bury St. Edmunds: the numismatic evidence

Jump to Comments

 

No settlement is recorded on the present site of Bury St. Edmunds in the Roman period, the nearest having been the villa or farm house partially excavated on the east side of Eastlowhill Road in Rougham, south of the Eastlow Hill tumulus, which is probably of Iron Age date. However, the Lark Valley was evidently a populous area in the late Iron Age and early Roman periods, and the numismatic evidence appears to support this. Celtic coins have been discovered (mostly by metal detectors) in Bury (18) and in the neighbouring parishes of Hengrave (1), Flempton (2), Fornham All Saints (1), Pakenham (2) and Ixworth (8). Metal detectorists are turning up new coins all the time, and many of these go unrecorded, so the representation of known coins found in this area is inevitably limited, and we may draw only the broadest of conclusions from the coins discovered so far. The site of Bury lay close to the territorial boundary of two British tribes, the Iceni and the Trinovantes. The distribution of coins strongly suggests that the Bury area lay within Icenian territory, but coins of the Trinovantes, the Corieltauvi of Lincolnshire and even the Catuvellauni of Essex and Hertfordshire are attested. The Iceni allied with the Trinovantes during the Boudican revolt against Roman rule of AD60, and it seems probable that relations between the two tribes were fairly cordial in the face of aggression from the Catuvellauni and, later, from Rome. Much stronger links have been posited between the Iceni and the Corieltauvi, whose territory stretched as far north as the Humber and as far west as Leicester (Ratae Coritanorum to the Romans). A king called Esuprasto is attested by Corieltauvian coins, and there is an ongoing debate about whether Icenian coins inscribed PRASTO should be attributed to the historical Prasutagus, the husband of Boudica, or to this Esuprasto (if indeed they were different people). The earliest coin is an early British silver unit found in 2002 that dates from before a time when specific tribal attributions can be made with certainty. It is not surprising that some Trinovantian coins should be mixed in among the Icenian types found around Bury; the later Roman settlement of Combretovium (Coddenham), which was probably the second most important town north of the river Ansa (Stour) by the 2nd century AD, was probably an important Trinovantian settlement before 9AD, when Cunobelinus of the Catuvellauni apparently annexed all Trinovantian territory to his burgeoning mini-empire; this would explain why his coins crop up in Bury. More puzzling, however, is the fact that all of the coins discovered in the neighbouring parishes of Hengrave and Flempton have been Corieltauvian types. Although the sample is too small for this to be anything more than speculation, it is possible that there was a Corieltauvian trading post on the river Lark, which joined the Abandinus (Great Ouse) and Metaris (the Wash) to flow out into the German Ocean; Tacitus indicates that water levels were very high and tidal rivers common, and it is worth remembering that Bury had its own wharf and quay until 1908, where coal was deposited from Newcastle having been brought by sea from the northeast.  One interesting feature of the coins unearthed around Bury is the number of so-called ‘Bury’ type silver units (6 of 18) discovered in Bury itself. The first of these, found in 1919, lent its name to what has become a fairly common Icenian type. It has been suggested that one of the three pagi into which the tribe was divided (according to Tacitus) was centred on the Lark Valley area. The ancient Icknield Way crosses the Lark at Lackford (just north of Bury), known as Camboritum to the Romans (and probably to the Celts as well). It is known that West Stow, also on the Lark, was a major centre of the Icenian pottery industry; further east, Ixworth (perhaps the place called Sitomagus by the Romans, and fairly rich in coin finds) was a significant settlement, and Thetford was probably a site of ritual significance for the whole tribe. Hoards of Icenian coins cluster around two main areas; the Lark Valley and the region of Caistor St. Edmund near Norwich, where the Romans were later to build the colonial settlement of Venta Icenorum. In the Lark Valley area, the most significant finds of hoards have been at Eriswell, Santon Downham, Lakenheath and Brettenham. Chris Rudd has postulated mints at Needham Market, Saham Toney (Norfolk) and Thetford. Although the distribution of the ‘Bury’ types is very wide indeed, it seems that this design was more characteristic of the western territories of the Iceni than the ‘wolf’ motifs common in northern and central Norfolk.There are three series of ‘Bury’ coins known as A, B and C. This particular example is of the ‘A’ series. The obverse of the coin appears to depict a female portrait facing a ram-headed snake to its left, and wearing an elaborate headdress. The head of the snake is not usually visible as the flan is smaller than the die. There appears to be a moonlike symbol on the front of the headdress; we know that the moon (and specifically the crescent moon) was very significant in Celtic belief. Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, notes that the druids gathered mistletoe on ‘the sixth day of the moon,’ and prayed to the moon using a name meaning ‘healer of all things’ (XVI, 95). The headdress itself has parallels in the bronze headdresses found at Hockwold-cum-Wilton in Norfolk and Cavenham in Suffolk (M. J. Green, Exploring the World of the Druids, pp. 60-1). These were adjustable, suggesting their use in worship by priests or devotees; one was composed of chains formed by s-shaped links, which is one way in which the headband on the coin can be interpreted. The portrait could represent a goddess or priestess; R. D. van Arsdell, who compiled a definitive index of Celtic coins, speculatively identified the portrait with the war goddess Andraste to whom Boudica sacrificed the entire female population of Londinium in 60AD. The portrait is certainly a fierce one, but while Boudica was undoubtedly a personal devotee of the cult of Andraste, there is no reason to think that the Iceni had a special connection with this goddess, and the ‘Bury’ series predates the reign of Prasutagus by some years. The reverse bears an image of a prancing horse surrounded by what are apparently heavenly bodies. The horse is the most recognisable feature of Celtic coinage and it is often interpreted as a reference to the goddess Epona, but on the other hand the earliest Celtic coins copied Macedonian staters that always bore a horse or a chariot on the reverse, and the horse may simply be conventional. The horse appears to be standing on a bridge with water beneath, unless this is stylised grass.  In 43AD, when the Romans invaded southern Britain, it seems that an Icenian king called Anted[ios], known only from his coinage, became a client king of Rome in order to avoid the annexation of his territory. He was the first to mint coins bearing his name, which may have been a ‘Roman’ gesture to celebrate this event. In reality, however, Anted[ios] was probably motivated by Icenian self-interest; he hoped that alliance with Rome would keep the Iceni as independent as possible. The Iceni also hated the powerful Catuvellauni, whose king Cunobelinus (Shakespeare’s Cymbeline) had conquered the Trinovantes of south Suffolk, seizing their capital Camulodunum. The Catuvellauni had led the response to the Roman invasion and Cunobelinus’ son Caractacus was now on the run in Wales. It has been conjectured that Anted[ios] was the leader of the western pagus, since this first revolted against Rome in 47. The Iceni had evidently underestimated what the Romans expected of them. The revolt may have been led by the Aesu[nos] and Saenu[vax] who minted coins at this time, against the pro-Roman policy of Anted[ios]. Resistance was finally crushed by Ostorius Scapula at a fort in the Fens that may have been Stonea Island. It was in the aftermath of this first Icenian revolt that Prasutagus became king.  Coins found in the Bury area from the Celtic Coin Index 

Bury St. Edmunds 

68.1221 Iceni Anted gold stater, VA705.01 (1883)

68.1118 Trinovantes Dubnovellaunos copper unit, VA1669.01 (1890)

68.1087 Trinovantes silver unit, VA1546.01 (1919)

68.1094 Iceni silver unit, VA80.01 (1919)

85.0068 Iceni silver unit, Allen BURY B (1985)

92.0043 Iceni silver unit, Allen EFH B (1992)

93.0263 Iceni Snettisham gold stater, VA1500.01 (1993)

93.0426 Iceni silver unit, VA80.01 (1993)

93.0456 Iceni silver unit, VA80.01 (1993)

93.0918 Iceni silver unit, VA665.01 (1993)

03.0668 Catuvellauni Cunobelin gold stater, VA2027.01 (1994)

95.0592 Iceni silver unit, VA80.01 (1994)

96.1597 Iceni silver unit, VA659.03 (1995)

96.1555 Iceni silver unit, VA80.01 (1995)

98.1871 Trinovantes gold stater, VA1487.01 (1998)

01.0123 Iceni silver unit, Allen EFH CC (2000)

01.1429 Iceni silver unit, VA760.01 (2000)

03.0058 British North Thames(?) silver unit (2002)

Hengrave 

00.1054 Corieltauvi gold stater, VA825.01 (1992)

Flempton 

00.0572 Corieltauvi gold stater, VA960.01 (1992)

00.0037 Corieltauvi gold stater, VA829.03 (1992)

Fornham 

68.1169 Iceni silver unit, VA657.01 (1935)  Pakenham 

95.1189 Iceni quarter stater, VA628.01 (1995)

98.1409 Iceni silver unit, VA730.01 (1998)   

Ixworth 

68.0438 Catuvellauni Cunobelin silver unit, VA2051.01 (1832)

62.0185 Iceni silver unit, VA792.01 (1864) 62.0186 Iceni silver unit, VA790.01 (1962)

94.0093 Iceni silver unit, Allen EFH CC (1993)

96.0157 Iceni silver unit, VA665.01 (1993)

96.1582 Iceni copper alloy stater, VA610.05 (1995)

98.2291 Iceni copper alloy half unit (1998)

2 Comments

Filed under Bury St Edmunds, antiquarianism