A new king has been added to British history – and a world record has been set – after a coin found in a Hampshire field fetched more than £20,000 at auction.
Dating from around 50 BCE and smaller than a fingernail, the gold coin is stamped with the name Esunertos, a previously unrecorded Iron Age ruler.
The find by detectorist Lewis Fudge has been described by experts as ‘one of the outstanding discoveries of recent decades’.
The coin was dug up by Mr Fudge in a farmer’s field in March this year after he got permission to detect.
‘I am over the moon, if it were not for people in the auction room I would have jumped around,’ said Mr Fudge.
‘The collectors I spoke to are gobsmacked. I’m so glad I did not take them up on their private offers before the auction.
‘To think my find has generated its own Wikipedia page is incredible.’
The coin dates to the very beginning of written language appearing in the British Isles.
Expected to fetch around £4,000, frenzied bidding at auctioneers Spink saw the price rise to £20,400, including premium, beating the world record for a similar type of coin, a set of Greek quarter-staters bearing the image of Medusa that sold for £10,800.
It was struck sometime between 50 and 30 BCE, shortly after Julius Caesar’s first Roman raid of Britain in 55 BCE.
He landed on the Kent coast from a fleet of ships carrying 20,000 Roman soldiers.
Waiting for them on the beach were thousands of Celtic warriors, but after initially driving them off the beach, the Romans were forced to return home after they ran low on food and rough seas wrecked their boats.
Caesar returned the following year better prepared with 50,000 soldiers, defeating many tribes and marching all the way to the River Thames.
But after three months of fighting, they left to stop a rebellion in Gaul.
The long-term settlement of Britain by Rome didn’t occur until 43 CE, when Claudius was emperor.
Leading Iron Age experts have since studied the coin and deduced it to be struck by a pre-eminent male figure dubbed ‘IISVNIRTOS’ whose name translates as ‘Mighty as the God Esos’.
One theory is that he possibly ruled as King from Danebury Rill, a nearby hill fort.
‘It is one of the outstanding discoveries of recent decades in Celtic numismatics,’ said Dr John Sills of the Celtic Coin Index at the Ashmolean Museum.
Gregory Edmund, Iron Age Coin Specialist at auctioneers Spink who led the team of experts in the recording of this new find added: ‘This fabulous piece of prehistoric artwork completes the mental image we have when we think of Iron Age Britain – the war horse and chariot.
‘But it also surprises us with the appearance of classical languages like Latin.
‘This is the reason I come to work – to document the discoveries of national importance and share that knowledge directly with museums and amongst academics, collectors and the public at large.’
Mr Edmund continued: ‘On a personal note, this find is particularly vindicating for me.
‘I focused my university degree on the Roman invasion of Britain through the lens of Britain’s first coinage.
‘To now add a critically important contemporary witness to those seismic events in the birth of our island’s story is electrifying.
‘Despite the coin’s diminutive size, the name of its conceiver – Esunertos – now truly echoes down the ages.
‘Esunertos was once forgotten, but now his name looms large in the historic record.’
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