Purpose and Pattern: abstraction on Celtic coins. 5: conclusion

Abstraction on Durotriges staters

The three Durotriges staters illustrated here apparently express the two types of abstraction we see in Celtic coins: meaning and recognizability. The top coin is a white gold to silver stater which follows the design of the Westerham stater which, from its broad distribution pattern, is a confederation coinage. John Kent, at the British Museum suggests that this is an issue of Cassivellaunos and I agree with this attribution. The second coin is much later ― at the end of their coinage. By this time, the Durotriges had fallen on very hard times. The staters which had started out as gold had become gradually debased over time ― first by adding silver and removing gold, then by adding copper and removing silver. Finally, they become a series of cast copper coins. The third coin is part of that final issue.

Conveniently, the two types of abstraction keep to different sides of the coin: meaning is maintained on the obverse and recognizability on the reverse. The abstracted "Apollo head" on the obverse has, as its most important motif, the cross design which represents the four seasons. The cycles of the seasons serve as metaphor for the transmigration of souls in the "as above, so below" concept which is virtually universal across cultures and times. What gradually vanishes is any representation of a head. The meaning continues right down to the strange coin at the bottom with its cross-like composition.

The main feature on the reverse is the chariot, but even by the time of the first coin, it is only the horse which is still visible in the design. The chariot and the driver have become pellets and it is those pellets that were more noticeable than the horse. On the second coin, only the pellets remain and in roughly the same composition as they appeared on the first coin. No other Celtic tribe had such a design so if you saw a bunch of pellets on a coin, you would think "Durotriges". The bottom coin maintains the pellets, but now they are in a line. If there is any meaning in this change, it is not obvious to us now.

The bottom coin contains another novelty: the person who made the mold has decorated the field by pressing a fingernail into the mold and this is where we see the presence of an individual. We speak of designs changing when what we really mean is that people change designs. "Excavational archaeology" has a tendency to lose sight of the individual, in fact I have seen archaeologists doubt even the existence of individuals in earlier periods and this is a truly bizarre psychological effect brought about by a too-narrow framing of the past. Ask anyone who studies primates if they have seen any signs of individuality in them and they might look at you as if you were crazy. Of course there is individuality and this is not restricted to just primates. I have owned many dogs and each of them, in addition to the behavior of canines and their breed, have exhibited personalities as well. Even if we look at a creature like the shark which appears to be like a feeding and breeding machine with only a small brain running the show, we see that individual animals have developed certain patterns of movement individual to themselves when we track them by radio signals. Without a measure of individuality, evolutionary change would be greatly lessened. Of course, any observation of individuality is another matter. As people become too specialized in their activities, perception of "the big picture" lessens and they also run a greater risk of being "selected out" by evolution. Volition can be identified when we plot the changes in Celtic coin designs and I hope that this little series might inspire further research into the themes I have covered here.

Tomorrow, Jungian enantiodromia and the anatomy of a recent tragedy.