S
Above: Image
from a Boii tribe coin, Germany.
Below: British
coin showing a cornucopia 10-40 CE
Below: symbolism
suggests the rider is guided
by the spirit of War (raven) and the spirit of
healing (duck)
Inset left: Iceni tribe coin from Britain, mid-C1st CE Below: reverse face of the same coin
Simon Lilly has an MA (Hons) in Fine Art from the University of Edinburgh and a post-graduate diploma in Sculpture from Edinburgh College of Art. He has written books on art history, crystal healing, shamanic processes and tree spirit healing. ‘Ancient Celtic Coin Art’ was published in 2008 by Wooden Books. www.greenman essences.com www.greenman shop.co.uk credibility and authority. They were
an intellectual and magical elite who would have certainly played a significant role in the design and creation of coinage.
For the Celts, coinage was not common currency. It largely served to recruit and maintain warriors in times of conflict (most of the time!) and so it reflects the functions of upholding the tribe, securing the tribal boundaries, promoting the power and authority of the king or queen, whose status is necessarily maintained by spiritual forces that also ensure fertility and wealth within the tribal lands.
The ability to strike large numbers of coins in precious metals – gold and silver as well as bronze and tin alloys - required substantial resources and was a clear sign of both temporal and spiritual power.
The imagery on the coins is a clear display of this magical power. The job description of shamanic practitioners varies around the world but at their very fundamental level they all intercede with the spirit worlds with an unusual degree of skill in order to protect the tribe. We shall see that many motifs in Celtic coin art reflect this function.
HEADS ANDTAILS
The head and the horse are by far the most prominent image on coins, deriving from Greek originals well-known to the Eastern Celts living around the area of the River Danube, whose main trade with the south was in slaves and the supply of mercenary soldiers to
warring city states. For the Celts the head represented spiritual power and numinous energy, and the horse represented the power of the land, sovereignty and the tutelary goddess, defended by the warrior class.
These images continue to echo the Classical originals, but the Celtic artists delight in playing with the symbolism, extracting endless new metaphors and levels of interpretation. The wreath of bay laurel, for example, transforms into trees, wheat, flames, and animals. The horse gathers symbols of Celtic power and divinity as it dissolves and re-appears as the essence of dynamic movement with stars, torcs, shapeshifting riders, suns, moons, flowers, birds and spirits of tribal ancestors.
SPIRIT RIDERS
Riders are often shown as birds and animals suggesting that the warrior has a spiritual power derived from that apparition, or represents his or her name, or is the guardian spirit or deity that protects the warrior and tribe. Sometimes the rider simply becomes a head casting spells from its mouth, or an eye floating menacingly above the horse’s back. Recognisable weapons – swords, shields and spears are less commonly held than branches, trees and birds, for it is the magical force rather than just strength of arms that will bring victory and abundance to the tribe.
THE SACRED TREE
Images of trees are important motifs, often central to the design, for they are themselves the axis, the sacred centre of the tribe, found in the most protected and powerful grove at the heart of the territory.
Trees usually have a simple symbolic motif, but sometimes they can be tentatively identified. The main motif of the coins of the Dobunni tribe of western England resembles an ash branch, or ash leaf.
Oak leaves and acorns appear, as do fruiting trees and what looks very much like yew branches. Coin imagery is full of familiar, repeated motifs but it can be difficult to be certain of their meaning.
Animals, for instance, can often be clearly identified but we may not be seeing other symbols of animals because they are now unfamiliar in
our visual vocabulary. Are those shapes bear-claws,
horse muzzles, animal tracks, feathers? Is that a spirit creature, a boar or a badger or hedgehog; that long-nosed being a weasel or a rat?
MANY LEVELS OF BEING
Even the simplest visual motif can morph into spiritually powerful ambiguity. The torc, the twisted metal open neck-ring that sums up the self-identity of the Iron Age Celt more than anything else, is a commonly found coin motif.
It is shown being held by deities, being given as gifts, around the necks of goddesses, rulers and warriors and is also seen floating above the warrior and the horse, twisting and writhing to become a serpent or double spiral, wrapping around the sun or opening out to
become a crescent moon. The torc symbolises the ‘enfoldment’ of the people to their land and their deities. It is, in essence, a transformation of the slave collar - a willing subjugation to the power of the spirits, an obligation to the gift givers, be they fertility goddesses, or tribal chieftains, or druid bestowers of knowledge. Its shape is the movement of the sun and moon across the sky and cycles of time and space, which perhaps is why the torc is found in mandalas with celestial symbols, sun, moon, stars and comets.
ANCESTRAL WHISPERS
From an artistic and art historical perspective Celtic Iron Age coin art deserves to be acknowledged as a significant addition to our knowledge of European spiritual traditions.
The imagery is at once sophisticated, immediate and evocative. Nearly every stylistic device, from figurative realism to cubism, futurism and surrealism can be seen in this art that flourished for three hundred years or more between C3rd BCEand C1st CE.
From a metaphysical and shamanic point of view Iron Age coin art is the last message to us from pre-history, the last
flourishing of a continuity of world- view and practice that extended backwards into the Bronze Age and Neolithic - four thousand years - before it became submerged and censored by the Roman Empire and then the Christian Church.
The unconscious mind, the deep mind, is a timeless mind that never forgets. It can recognise and remember the powerful symbols of the past and can stir up profound insight even as it often leaves the conscious awareness floundering in mists of ambiguity and a fruitless search for unequivocal meaning.
The artist-magicians of the Iron Age gathered together the most precious metals, light of sun and moon and stars, to create spells of victory, promise and power, weaving them into images that impressed themselves on those who saw them.
Look now, and the images will still come to life. Listen, and the voices of the past rise up again from the deepest levels of awareness. We are our ancestors, the past lies in shining pools of silver and gold, hidden beneath our feet – a gift from the Otherworld.
here has been a very long history of metal coin manufacture in China, stretching back many thousands of years, and coins with holes - perhaps most peoples idea of what a Chinese coin should look like - have been part of the currency for over 2,000 years.
During this long period of use, a lot of semi-magical lore and tradition has been developed in connection with coins. But perhaps their most common non- financial use has been in divination, both within China and beyond, in the surrounding lands of Central Asia.
CHINESE DIVINATION
Probably the oldest regularly used Chinese method of divination still in use, is the I Ching, the traditions of which began to be formalised around 400
BCE, although some
authorities say it has been in use for as long as 5,000 years.
In the I Ching, a series of either solid (yang) or broken (yin) lines are determined, and subsequently read to gain understanding.
These lines are traditionally found by tossing three coins into the air and seeing which way up they land. If two or more of the coins are heads, then the line will be yang, and if two or more coins are tails the line will be yin. This process is repeated six times, and the subsequent pattern of six solid or broken lines is called a hexagram.
Once the hexagram has been determined it is looked up in the I
Ching texts (generally called ‘The Book of Changes’) to show the meaning of each of the hexagrams; so by looking at a series of hexagrams, an answer to the question is acheived.
SHAMANIC DIVINATION
Chinese coins have been valued as a favourite form of divination by Southern Siberian shamans for a very long time too, although they have worked out a separate method of divination.
In her books, the late Mongolian shaman Sarangerel
gives various methods of traditional Mongolian shamanic divination, including casting stones,
reading cards, the use of sheep knuckle bones and
two methods using Chinese coins - one
method with five coins, and the
other method with nine coins.
Both of the methods of divination she describes are used by the general populace, as well as by shamans. The readings she gives for each of the five or nine coins used are too complex to go into with this article, but readers who
wish to learn the method can read her books. (See the notes at the end of the article.)
USING A COIN SET
If you wish to practice this sort of divination method yourself, or wish to use coins in combination with the I Ching, you don’t have to use Chinese coins. If you want to use old Chinese coins, these can be bought fairly easily and cheaply online - eBay will give you a wide choice of them from different periods of history - including fakes!
For the effectivness of the reading it doesn’t matter if they are fakes or real coins. You ideally need well-worn coins, so that they can be shuffled with ease, which need to sit in your hand well and ‘feel’ right.
It is nice to get a bag to keep your coins safe; this could be made from leather or cloth. If you wish to buy a ready-made bag, many shops who sell ritual objects used for Tibetan Buddhist practice, sell small brocade bags, and these are ideal.
Above:
Mongolian nine coin divination set and bag. Bag mid-late C20th. The coins are older than the bag and have worn almost smooth through use over time