The last Land of the Iceni Conference, focussing on the archaeology of Iron Age East Anglia, took place at UEA in 1995, and like this one it was organised by John Davies. The previous conference produced the volume Land of the Iceni: The Iron Age in Northern East Anglia, published in 1999. It has been thirteen years, therefore, since there has been a conference on the Iceni and a gathering of all the scholars working in the field. On Saturday 17th May such a gathering did finally take place at the King of Hearts in Norwich. There has been no want of interest in the Iceni during the intervening period – indeed, as John Davies remarked at the end of the conference, there was a large field of scholars to choose from when deciding who to invite as speakers. The growth of digital mapping technology (described at the conference by Sophie Tremlett) and the ever increasing number of known coin types being produced by metal detecting are all making Iron Age archaeology one of the most exciting and fastest growing areas of British archaeology.
My chief interest in the Iceni is numismatic and I was not disappointed by the coverage given to coins at this conference; Amanda Chadburn, who wrote on Icenian mints in the 1999 volume, presented the latest evidence for the ‘Three Pagi’ theory of the Iceni based on coin series; John Talbot presented the latest research on Icenian die types; Adrian Marsden pondered the predominance of counterfeit foreign coins in the Snettisham hoards; Daphne Nash Briggs presented a controversial analysis of Icenian coin legends and finally Megan Dennis described a very detailed analysis of the Bury A unit (incidentally my favourite Iceni silver coin). Everyone seems now to be giving coinage its proper place as one of the richest sources of evidence available for the East Anglian Iron Age.
Derek Allen first suggested that the Iceni were divided into three pagi based on the Horse/Face, Boar/Face and Boar/Horse series, all of which are supposed to date from after 20BC. In the period AD10-45 at least eight rulers appear in legends on coins; if these were sequential then they had very short reigns; Allen therefore suggested that they were leaders of different pagi. Amanda Chadburn suggested that ‘Pagus 1’ was associated with the ANTEDI dynasty and the Boar/Horse series, perhaps based at Thetford. ‘Pagus 2’ is associated with the ECE legend and perhaps Stonea, and ‘Pagus 3’ with the ECEN legend and Face/Horse types, based at what was later Venta Icenorum. John Talbot in his study of dies shed further light on a possible chronology, with the general observation that with the passing of time dies within the Freckenham series get cruder and cruder; so we begin with the Irstead types and move through the Early Boar/Horse to the Boar/Horse types. Talbot associates the ‘Large Flan A’ types (linked to the Waveney Valley area) with a ‘diamond dot’ ‘privy mark’ (to use the term current in Anglo-Saxon numismatics), changing later to the hollow star.
Talbot sees local issues such as Bury A and Bury B as being replaced in the period c. 15BC-5AD with a denominational coinage; the Snettisham stater, the Irstead quarter stater and the Early Boar/Horse silver unit, 23 of which made up the weight of the stater. This was succeeded by a late denominational coinage in the period c. 5-43AD which is linked with Trinovantian types. For instance, on late Irstead quarter staters we find the triquetra symbol that appears on coins of Dubnovellaunus. It appears that the production of gold coinage shrank in the period 20-43AD, explaining why the triquetra quarter staters are rare. This is a revision of Van Arsdell’s view, who believed the Irstead quarter stater and Bury types were contemporaneous.
The Bury A unit received a lot of attention in the course of the day; John Talbot made the observation that a Bury A unit, if turned on its axis so that the face is looking at the viewer, will reveal a three-dimensional face since the lock of hair will form a second eye. I have tried this with my own Bury A unit (see picture) and I am not entirely convinced, but this may be because the condition of my example is not good enough and the face does not stand proud of the flan. Megan Dennis has made a metallurgical analysis of the Bury A and found it to have a high silver content compared with the Early Face/Horse type. The silver content of Bury A is comparable with issues in southern Britain, as well as Roman denarii of the 1st century BC. This fact, combined with the comparison of Bury A with a northern French coin (Delestree DT 350) leads Dennis to conclude that ‘the catalyst for East Anglian silver production came from France.’ The Bury A type shared its style and metallurgy with Gaulish types and may even have been engraved by a Gaulish craftsman. Megan Dennis suggested that the Early Face/Horse types were debased local copies of the Bury series and struck from debased silver recycled from Bury coins.
The Bury series made yet another appearance in Edward Martin’s paper on the territorial boundaries of the Iceni. In the 1999 volume Martin proposed a Lark-Gipping boundary for the Iceni and Trinovantes which has largely held up through thirteen years of discoveries. However, the Bury coins tend to turn up a lot in south east Suffolk around Ipswich and Burgh, raising questions about the significance of Burgh as a fort that may have been on a shifting tribal boundary.
I am delighted that someone studying the Iceni is taking John Creighton’s theories (in Coins and Power in Iron Britain) about the Romanisation of pre-Roman Britain seriously (I find them quite compelling); as soon as I read Creighton’s study of the coins of Atrebates and Regni, with the coins of the Catuvellauni and Trinovantes occasionally touched upon, I found myself wishing that someone would apply his analysis of Roman-derived images to the coinage of the Iceni. Daphne Nash Briggs did not quite do this but I allow myself to hope that she will in the course of her later research. Her paper focussed instead on the ethnic and linguistic identity of the Iceni – a somewhat perilous area of speculation given the thinness of the evidence. Beginning with the palaeogeneticist Stephen Oppenheimer’s claim in The Origins of the British (2006) that a substratum of the population of eastern England has been there since the Mesolithic, Briggs noted that the same genetic signal is to be found in northern Europe as here; this makes eastern England unlike the west, where a population of Ibero-Atlantic origin was dominant. She links this observation with the disquiet of Peter Forster concerning the peculiarity of English among Germanic languages. It is so different from its relatives, Forster argues, that it must have been developing from a Proto-Germanic common ancestor for longer than history appears to permit.
Daphne Nash Briggs made the startling suggestion that English had its original heartland among the indigenous population of eastern Britain; to support this hypothesis she relied largely on Icenian coin legends. Brythonic philologists have struggled to accommodate Icenian names and legends within what is known of P-Brythonic, the Celtic language undoubtedly spoken by the southern and eastern kingdoms. For instance, the name Eceni, which uniquely among tribal names appears on Icenian coins, has long been argued to have something to do with horses. However, there are innumerable examples of Brythonic personal names (Epona, Eppillus, Eppius etc.) in which the epo- prefix is uniformly used. An ec- prefix would be more at home in a Q-Celtic (Goidelic) language like Irish where the eoch- prefix indicates an association with horses. Briggs claims that the linguistic problem associated with the Iceni disappears once one attempts to interpret the names and coin legends in the light of Old English. Eceni comes from the OE eacen, to enlarge and increase; the magni of [E]cenimagni (the name used by Caesar for the Iceni) is related to the OE maegen, power or strength. Likewise the name of the first king testified on Icenian issues, ANTED, is interpreted as OE ant- (intensifying prefix) and eðan (‘lay waste’), i.e. ‘one who lays waste.’ The legend ALE SCA is interpreted as OE al (‘all’) and sceawean (‘scrutinising, divining’), perhaps the title of a Germanic priest-ruler – although Briggs conceded that on a few examples the name is ALEF SCAVO and she suggested ALEF could relate to the OE alf (‘elf’) or ale (‘ale’ – does this mean the Iceni used alcohol in divination rites?). SAENV is associated with OE sae (‘sea’) and CANI DVRO, probably a place name, with OE cane (‘reed’) and OE dur (‘gate’). Even the gruesome goddess Andraste gets a Germanic makeover as OE an- (intensifying prefix) and OE draeden (‘to fear’); a wood in Kent is called Andred. Furthermore OE anda means anger, envy, malice, enmity and andetan means to give thanks or praise; the word ander means ‘duck,’ which could make Andraste a water-deity (shown riding on ducks in Gaulish representations). Andraste’s name was discussed in Chris Rudd’s List 41. AESV is related by Briggs to the Gaulish Esus, usually thought to mean ‘lord.’ Briggs suggests that this was not a name but a royal title.
When approaching that most enigmatic of Icenian issues, the late and Romanised ESVPRASTV coin, Briggs points out that no pr- sound exists in Gallo-Brythonic, and suggests that PRASTV may stand for the Latin praestes, a title that may have been used by ESVPRASTV after he returned from his time as an obsides in Rome (cf. Creighton’s theories). This suggests to Briggs that the title RIGON was never used by Icenian leaders (except perhaps temporarily in periods of war) as praestes suggests a first among equals. Icenian leadership, in Briggs’ view, is summed up by the two titles AESV (a sacred lord) and PRASTV, which is why the issuer of the ESVPRASTV coin was given both. She compares this with the nature of kingship among Germanic peoples, where the king convened the tribal assembly and discerned omens but had little power beyond this; she points to Boudica’s discernment of omens and the rage of the Iceni at the rape of Prasutagus’ daughters – could this have been a sacrilegious act against the children of a priest-king?
The final piece in Briggs’ jigsaw is her suggestion that the images on Icenian coins can be related to Germanic mythological themes known to us through Norse mythology. For instance, the ‘stitched up’ eye on the Early Face/Horse type could refer to Odin; likewise the substitution of a wolf for the standard horse on the British N (Norfolk Wolf) stater, the first Icenian issue, could refer to the ravenous wolf who devours the world at the end of time in Norse myths.
Daphne Nash Briggs’ linguistic thesis does not convince me. She herself conceded that one important Icenian name, Boudica (Gallo-Brythonic ‘victory’) is indisputably Celtic. Yes, Boudica may have been a foreign princess (e.g. of the Trinovantians) who came into Icenian territory to marry Prasutagus, but she might also have been the daughter of a chieftain of one Icenian pagus (e.g. ANTED) who inherited his property (hence the anger at Nero’s confiscation of estates that may have been hers, on the analogy of female property rights in the Old Irish Brehon Law). Prasutagus seems to have been installed as Icenian leader after the Icenian revolt of 47, and the fact that the name EVPRASV appears on Corieltauvian coins in Lincolnshire (see Chris Rudd List 95) could suggest that the Romans went for an outsider as client king of the Iceni, who would then have married Boudica in order to gain acceptance. This, however, is to oppose speculation with speculation. What Briggs did not provide was an analysis of the name Prasutagus itself; what is its relation to ESVPRASV and is it the result of Latinisation or scribal error (or is it a different person)?
Forster’s anxiety about the development of English is an area that needs the comment of a specialist in Old English rather than me, but one should never underestimate the speed with which a language may develop, especially when the circumstances that preserved inflection are removed; Old Welsh, for instance, is not substantially different except in spelling and some grammar from Middle Welsh and modern Welsh, but it is substantially removed from its Brythonic ancestor; the change must have taken place over 200 years between AD400 and 600. Likewise, Cornish and Breton developed over the same period into two entirely distinct (and mutually incomprehensible) successor languages over the same short period. Linguistic inflection is preserved by a written language and the chaos of post-Roman Britain led to the rapid deterioration of Brythonic (e.g. by the loss of the final syllable from most words). If this could happen to Brythonic, why not to English in its north German homeland?
The sad truth is that we still know so little about Brythonic that we cannot say whether the Icenian coin legends represent a Brythonic language or not with any certainty; indeed, the few coin legends are themselves among the only source materials we have for Brythonic! Some words on Icenian coins are clearly Brythonic, like DVRO – this is found in innumerable place names (Durolipons, Durovigutum, Durolitum etc.) and requires no Germanic interpretation. Briggs herself admits that Andraste may be related to the Welsh word andras (‘a curse, evil, devil’); likewise she acknowledges a Gaulish cognate for AESV. The Latin on the ESVPRASTV coin is perfect: SVB ESVPRASTV ESICO FECIT. Why then should the moneyer have blundered praestes as PRASTV? This is far more likely to be a Brythonic dative. Furthermore, Briggs did not mention those examples of the same coin on which the legend is SVB RI ESVPRASTV ESICO FECIT. What does RI stand for if not the Brythonic RIGON?
Finally, we surely know far too little about Brythonic mythology (which survives in Welsh only in euhemerised forms) to make assertions about the Germanic origin of images on Icenian coins; we still do not know how to interpret images on coins of people who undoubtedly spoke Brythonic. Wolves appear on only 2% of Icenian issues (as Amanda Chadburn pointed out).
Perhaps Briggs’ thesis is a fair speculation, at best – it explains the relative isolation of the Iceni from other British peoples, the rapid assimilation of the local population into the Angles in the 5th century and the absence of any Brythonic survivals in the English language. Yes, we have no place names from Iceni territory (apart from the anodine Roman Venta Icenorum and the hydronymic Gariannonum); although it is worth bearing in mind that the certainly Brythonic Camboritum (Lackford) was probably in Icenian territory. However, all of these matters could be explained by many other factors and the orthodoxy that the Iceni were a Brythonic-speaking people does not, in my view, merit a reassessment in the light of the evidence Briggs has brought forward.
In this report on the proceedings I have touched on only some of the issues raised – others, such as the equal distribution of potins north and south of the Lark-Gipping line, will need further attention at some other time.
1 Comment
January 4, 2009 at 9:17 pm
[...] British, a book I have been intending to read since I heard Daphne Nash-Briggs’ paper at the ‘Land of the Iceni’ conference, in which she drew on one of the ideas in Oppenheimer’s book (that English was spoken in [...]