Introduction

This image deserves more attention than it's received. It shows an ancient British mint in operation – and it's in colour no less. It's been around since 1815.

It's creators made one of the few attempts to show what a Celtic mint in Britain looked like. They showed how mint workers made coins and the tools they used.

The image appears as plate XIII in Meyrick and Smith's The Costume of the Orignial Inhabitatants of the British Islands. (Book Details)(Colour Details)

Usually, such an image would appear over and over in numismatic publications and everyone would immediately recognize it. One wonders why this one hasn't received wider appreciation.

That it appeared in a costume book might offer some explanation. If it had appeared in Ruding's Annals of the Coinage of Britain instead, it might have become more widely known in numismatic circles. Few would go looking for a numismatic image in a costume book.

....But perhaps something more nefarius happened.

Building an image – starting with nothing

Meyrick (the author) and Smith (the illustrator) understood the task ahead of them. Meyrick, an expert on armour, led the project.

The two men wanted to recreate an ancient mint accurately. More impressively, they described the methodology they used and were careful to cite sources. They sought images as close to the time of the mint as they could find to include in their illustration.

The resulting illustration is a composite of genuine ancient images, using the information available in 1815. In only one instance were they forced to use an inspiration from modern times. No ancient source was available for the mint building. So for that they had to guess. (Chronological Problems)

They were bound to make mistakes – but pressed ahead anyway. However, they had no intention of dreaming things up.

Disassembling the Image

The image is made up of a general scene with two figures. Below, there are two coins. These four elements – scene, two figures, and coins at the bottom – must be assessed separately to appreciate Meyrick's accomplishment.

For the rest of the discussion, "Meyrick and Smith" will be shortened to "Meyrick" for brevity. But decisions may have been taken jointly by the two men.

Meyrick's Strategy

Meyrick sought out plausible images from ancient times. He was careful to select ones as close as possible to the date of a British mint. He was not trying to invent details or guess at appearances.

The outcome would be be limited by the ancient images he could find in 1815, but he wouldn't let it be compromised by a lackadaisical attitude about accuracy.

The Overall Scene

Unfortunately, Meyrick had no ancient image of a British building or landscape to guide him. So he used ones from the South Pacific, instead. For example, in plate VIII he borrows images of round houses in New Caledonia to create "British cabbins." He justified his choice because they they came close to Strabo's descriptions of buildings in Gaul. He evidently chose a round building for the mint using the same logic. (See Plate VIII)

This proved to be a lucky choice, because a circular structure (roundhouse) would prove, years later, to be a typical kind of Ancient British building. It would be 75 years before British roundhouses were identified by archaeologists. In 1892, roundhouses had been unearthed in Somerset. (Background)

Left: early illustration of roundhouses at Glastonbury Lake Village by M. Forestier.

Meyrick's scene shows us a spit-and-polish kind of Iron Age. This probably didn't offend readers in 1815 – they would have liked a romantic view of their ancestors.

Today, archaeologists have accustomed us to expect a dirty and smelly sort of Iron Age. To modern readers, the image looks somewhat bizarre. Surely the furnace behind the moneyer would have blackened everything around it with soot.

Also, would someone be walking around barefoot with heated coins spilling onto the floor? Why is the man carrying an unsheathed sword?

The foreground is decorated with miscellaneous pre-Roman objects, shown as the metalworker's other products. Some are centuries older than the scene and shouldn't be there.

But we have to move beyond these quibbles.

The Figures in the Scene

Both of the figures were inspired by a single source –  plate 17 in the 1789 edition of Camden's Britannia (detail, shown left). The moneyer is copied from a British coin, the Romanized Briton from a Roman tombstone.

There are two images of this coin in the book. Meyrick's citation for the moneyer figure actually leads instead to the first appearance, in the coin plates – to Cunobeline's metal worker coin. It's an obvious adaptation. But this can't be the image Meyrick actually used, it's too crude.

Later in the Britannia, here in plate 17, there is the second, better image of Cunobeline's coin directly above a Roman tombstone. This second image might be the one Meyrick copied, but there are still better ones to track down.

The tombstone below the coin is the likely source for Meyrick's standing figure.

Meyrick probably saw plate 17 and decided to use both images for his book. His other citations show that he looked at several other images of the coin to get better ideas for the moneyer. There is a thoroughness in his approach to the details here.

The Two Coins Below the Scene

Meyrick's plate shows two coins at the bottom. Both are well-known types.

Metalworker Coin

The first coin is V2097, Cunobeline's metal worker type, first published by Camden in 1590. (See catalog listing for V2097)

Meyrick's source for this image was supposedly the 1789 edition of Camden's Britannia, but the actual source is problematic and this will be discussed below.

Tasciovanus Stater

The other coin is V1732, a Second Coinage stater of Tasciovanus. (See catalog listing for V1732)

The source for the image does appear to be Speed's The Historie of Great Britaine.

At this point, the illustration seems to meet Meyrick's goal of using plausible ancient images. However, there are many concerns and numismatists would be right to question the image's reliability.

Taking a closer look at the two figures will give us greater insight.

Details About the Figures

The scene has two figures, a seated "Feryllt" busy striking coins, and a "Romanized Briton", standing next to him. The standing figure is intended to be a member of the ruling elite, overseeing the mint operations.

The "Feryllt"

"Feryllt" is best taken to mean "moneyer" in this image. (Info)

Meyrick indicates he adapted this image from a coin in the Gough edition of Camden's Britannia (1789 edition shown here). He also notes other examples in Speed and the 1695 Gibson edition of the Britannia.

The original coin (and Gough's illustration) clearly show a man hammering a bronze vase with a foot ring. Turning the man into a moneyer wasn't a bad idea – but it led to a mistake about the minting process. Meyrick shows the hammer die as part of the hammer. The image was cut into the face.

This means the moneyer had to hit the flan perfectly every time he struck a blow. He would have needed incredible skill to do this repeatedly. If Meyrick had discussed this with anyone knowledgeable about minting operations, he would have learned the hammer and the die were two separate tools. The die could be centred on the flan and the hammer merely supplied the striking force.

There shouldn't have been any mystery about the way the specialized metalworker's hammer in the image was used. It's still made and used today. It's called a "dog's head" hammer, or perhaps a variety of a "weight-forward" hammer. The hammer on the coin shows a bulbous and turned-down face. It's used for a variety of tasks, but a common one is for sheet metal work – exactly as shown on Cunobeline's coin. (Details)

Such a hammer would have been useful for hammering the rounded bowl from the inside. The ancient die-cutter for Cunobeline's coin had a good familiarity with metal working and an eye for detail regarding the tools workers actually used. Unfortunately, Meyrick's source for the image changed a genuine type of hammer to a non-existent tool. It's surprising that Meyrick, an arms and armour expert, failed to catch this particular error.  (More about the moneyer image)

Meyrick's errors here undermine our trust in the image.

The "Romanized Briton"

Fortunately, the other figure, a Romanized Briton, is borrowed from more strightforward sources. The orginal image was a Roman Centurion on a tombstone found near Ludgate Hill, London in 1669. (More about the tombstone).

On the tombstone, the figure is standing, holding a Centurion's staff in his right hand and a scroll in his left. Meyrick changed the staff into a sword, and added colours to the clothing. He used red for the tunic to suggest a Roman (or Gaulish) origin, and a plaid pattern, to suggest a British one for the cloak. Thus, the Centurion was changed into a Romanized Briton.

The inscription mentions the soldier was married while in service. Such marriages became possible during the reign of Septimius Severus – dating the stone after 197 A.D. (Reference)

It's doubtful Meyrick knew the tombstone dated 150 years later than the mint scene. Fashion could have changed and he might have sought an earlier source had he known. The dating would have been important in a costume book.

This is yet another problem that undermines our confidence in the image today.

Fairholt and the Controversy

This image ought to be better known amongst numismatists today. There's a possible explanation why it isn't – it may have been rejected by the numismatic community at an early date.

F.W. Fairholt, the engraver who prepared the superb woodcuts for Evans' Coins of the Ancient Britons, decided to produce a better costume book than Meyrick's. In 1846, he published Costume in England, a History of Dress from the earliest Period Till the Close of the Eighteenth Century. In his book, Fairholt sums up earlier authors' works as having little value:

"The details of the earliest English costume have been thus entered upon, because it was felt necessary to guide the artist, in his delineation of ancient life, by fact illustrations alone; and many attempts have been made in expensive works, having much pretension to accuracy, that may considerably mislead him in his details; authorities have been cited and used that are in reality of little value, and plates the result of this guess work are fortified by learned descriptions and quotations apparently unquestionable, of authorities by no means valid, and from which it would not be difficult to manufacture the most absurd figures." F.W. Fairholt, 1846

Although these comments condemned costume books in general, it seems they were aimed primarily at Meyrick. (See pages in Fairholt's book).

Fairholt was the illustrator for many numismatic and archaeological books in the 1850s and 60s. This was a time of controversy for Ancient British numismatics. He would have had influence amongst the key authors, and his close working relationship with Sir John Evans is well-known. (See another article about Fairholt and Evans)(Another reference)

It may be that Fairholt convinced Evans that Meyrick's image of a British mint was untrustworthy – he would have been able to use Meyrick's mistakes as evidence. In any event, Evans did not mention Meyrick's work in The Coins of the Ancient Britons.

Appraising the Image Today

Today, we can see the image as an idealized vision of an Iron Age mint. But we can also appreciate Meyrick's desire to construct a plausible scene based on ancient evidence.

Meyrick made one preventable mistake by conjuring up a non-existent tool: the one-piece hammer and die. He could have avoided this by asking other antiquaries about minting procedures.

Today, Meyrick's images are most often described as delightful and charmingly idyllic. Several authors have pointed out that Meyrick may have been influenced by the druid mania of the 18th and early 19th centuries, and that his images popularized it further. (References).

And yet...

Meyrick got one thing absolutely right. One thing that modern numismatists wouldn't normally consider.

He correctly answers the question: "Who is the important person in the scene?" – and he does it with skill and subtletry.

Modern writers sensibly focus on the moneyer as the important man. He's the one making the coins, the things we focus all our attention on today. It's the die-links, the alloys, the weights, the findspot distributions that hold the keys to understanding the past. These are best studied and published in isolation, not influenced by considerations of the context of the ancient world and its people.

But Meyrick, creating a costume book, held "people-in-context" to be of prime importance.

Meyrick constructed the scene carefully.

He has the moneyer clad in minimal clothing. He leans over his work as if he's driven to produce. He's smaller than the Romanized Briton, leading us to accord him less importance.

Meanwhile, the Romanized Briton is dressed in his best finery. He must have much higher status. He's armed, giving him the look of power and authority. He gazes off into the distance, unconcerned with the mundane matters at hand. He has more important things to worry about.

Clearly, Meyrick, a wealthy aristocrat producing a book for other aristocrats, decided to show the Romanized Briton as the important person in the image.

The Romanized Briton's clearly the one who makes all the decisions about the coinage. He's the one who decides what the coins are made of, how many are made, and how they're sent out into the world. He's the one who will influence people and guide events with money.

Most importantly, the Romanized Briton is controlling the propaganda, the coin messages he wants conveyed to his people. He wants to tell them things and convince them he's a leader.

Summary

Today, we shouldn't view Meyrick's image as an inaccurate, idyllic view of an ancient mint.

We should view it as a canny and accurate view of people and the role of coinage in the ancient world.

End