Page "Carnutes" Paragraph 2

In the 1st century BC, the Carnutes minted coins, usually struck with dies, but sometimes cast in an alloy of high tin content called potin.

Their coinage turns up in hoards well outside their home territories, in some cases so widely distributed in the finds that the place of coinage is not secure.

The iconography of their numismatics includes the motifs of heads with traditional Celtic torcs ; a wolf with a star ; a galloping horse ; and the triskelion.

Many coins show an eagle with the lunar crescent, with a serpent, or with a wheel with six or four spokes, or a pentagrammatic star, or beneath a hand holding a branch with berries, holly perhaps.

The wheel with four spokes forms a cross within a circle, an almost universal image since Neolithic times.

Sometimes the circle is a ring of granules.

Among the Celts, the ring and spokes may represent the cycle of the year divided in its four seasons, rather than the sun, which is a common meaning among cultures.

See Cross.