v61_0308 - SOUTH-WESTERN GAUL Drachme lourde, imitation de Rhodè

SOUTH-WESTERN GAUL

(3rd century BC)

The notion of people or tribe seems to disappear with regard to certain attributions when one examines the coinage of imitations of Emporion or Rhodè. If the prototypes are struck beyond the Pyrenees, the imitations were issued on both sides of the mountain range. The early disappearance of R. Boudet (1958-1995) did not allow the latter to establish a corpus of these coins. The finds are not limited to Aquitaine, but are spread over the great West between the Loire and the Pyrenees, i.e. nearly a third of the territory of ancient Gaul.. The finds of imitations of the drachma of Emporion, which seems to have had a wider distribution, are numerous and spread over the whole of the geographical area: from Charnizay in the Indre-et-Loire or Issoudun in the 'Indre to Ruscino in the Pyrénées-Orientales. The Rhodè coin finds are concentrated in Aquitaine and do not go beyond the course of the Garonne and the Dordogne with the treasures of Mouleydier in Dordogne or Mouliets-et-Villemartin in Gironde and as far as Montlaurès in Aude and Foix in Arriège. To whom should these coinages, sometimes very different, which do not present any homogeneity at the level of the typological series be attributed?.