The Origin of Metallic Currency and Weight StandardsRidgeway, William
History
The Origin of Metallic Currency and Weight Standards
Ridgeway, William
Money -- Origin; Weights and measures -- History
the treasure of Delphi, dedicated to appease the wrath of Apollo, with
additions from the private resources of the Tectosages themselves. In
the same chapter Diodorus says that “there is no silver at all found in
Gaul, but gold in abundance, of which the natives get supplied without
mining or hardship. The currents of the rivers, which are tortuous in
their course, beat against the banks formed by the adjacent mountains,
and bursting away considerable hills, fill them with gold dust. This the
persons who are engaged in the workings collect, and they grind or break
up the lumps which contain the gold dust. Then having washed away the
earthy part with water, they transfer the gold to furnaces for smelting.
In this fashion heaping up quantities of gold, not only the women but
likewise the men employ it for adornment. For they wear bracelets round
their wrists and arms, and thick torques of solid gold round their necks
and rings of remarkable size, and moreover breastplates of gold.” The
statement regarding silver is not accurate, as the more careful and
trustworthy Strabo mentions silver mines in various places in Gaul.
Finally, in the land of the Tarbelli, an Iberian tribe of Aquitania,
who dwelt in the extreme south-west corner of Aquitania on the shore of
the Bay of Biscay, there were extremely productive gold-mines. “For in
spots dug only to a shallow depth are found plates of gold that sometimes
require little refining, and the rest consists of dust and nuggets which
involve but little working[134].”
I have purposely gone somewhat minutely into the gold-fields of ancient
Gaul, and the story of the sacred treasures. For I think that no one who
considers carefully the statements of Posidonius, Strabo, and Diodorus,
can help regarding as wholly inaccurate the conclusion of Schrader, based
on the Irish word _or_, that the Keltic peoples were not acquainted
with gold until the fourth century B.C. The sacred treasures point to a
ceremonial consecration of gold extending back through untold ages.
[Illustration: FIG. 14. ANCIENT BRITISH COINS.
A. Coin of Iceni.
B. Common type with plain obverse[135].]
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