A licensed metallic detectorist who was scanning in a discipline close to Leipzig, Germany, found the oldest coin ever discovered within the state of Saxony. The two,200-year-old gold coin, often known as a “rainbow cup,” is a uncommon instance of imported Celtic foreign money.
“The gold coin is a tangible piece of our historical past and supplies new insights into commerce with the Celts,” Saxony’s state minister, Barbara Klepsch, stated in a translated assertion Oct. 27.
Celtic rainbow cups — named after the German time period “regenbogenschüsselchen,” which interprets to “tiny rainbow finger bowl” — have been named for his or her curved form and for the superstition that treasure might be discovered the place a rainbow touched the bottom, in keeping with the assertion. They have been created by the traditional Celts, fierce warrior tribes who lived in mainland Europe and later sacked Rome.
The entrance of the Gundorf Rainbow Cup depicts the stylized head of a stag or related animal, whereas the again exhibits an open neck ring with thickened ends (probably a Celtic torc or torque), a star with rounded corners, and a sphere.
Saxony state archaeologist Regina Smolnik stated within the assertion that the 2-gram (0.7 ounce) coin — concerning the weight of a U.S. dime — was in “nearly mint situation” and unlikely to have been in circulation as foreign money. “Moderately, it was possible a standing image or a retailer of worth belonging to an higher class particular person with commerce relations with the Celts,” Smolnik stated.
A number of rainbow cups have been recovered not too long ago in Germany, portray an image of commerce relations between the Celts and Germanic-speaking individuals previous to the Roman invasion.
In 2021, archaeologists found a stash of 41 plain rainbow cups within the northeastern German state of Brandenburg. These cash, which have been minted within the first century B.C., have been additionally assumed to have been procured via commerce, because the Celts did not stay in Brandenburg. And in 2023, archaeologists within the German state of Bavaria introduced the invention of a single rainbow cup with a uncommon four-pointed star ornament on the within, probably misplaced by somebody touring alongside an historical street close by.
Though the Gundorf Rainbow Cup is simply a single coin, its discovery in Saxony, together with different examples of the coin elsewhere in Germany, has supplied “additional proof of standard contact and connections” between the Celts and the individuals dwelling in Saxony greater than two millennia in the past, in keeping with Smolnik.
