Coin of Anarevitos

Iron Age

British Museum

circa 10 BC-20 AD

This is the first evidence for the existence of a hitherto unknown British Iron Age king called Anarevitos, who was active in Kent in the decades immediately before the Roman conquest in AD 43. No Roman historical sources or previous coin finds attest a ruler of this name and, as such, it is truly an object of national importance. In the first century BC, southern Britain was divided into a number of smaller dynamic tribes or kingdoms, whose rulers began to use coins as a way of establishing and maintaining their positions in local society. The significance of this find can be compared to the discovery of the Coenwulf Anglo Saxon penny or the Roman coin of Domitianus.

• Medium: gold
• Dimensions: diameter: 1.8cm
• Art Fund Grant: £13000 ( Total: £21,000)
• ArtFunded in: 2011
• Vendor: Chris Rudd

Provenance

Discovered September 2010 by a metal-detector user on farmland near Dover, Kent; private collection.

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