Ancient Gold Coin Circulated During Reign of Celtic Queen Boudicca Sells at Auction

A 2000 year old gold coin thought to be in circulation during the reign of legendary Celtic Queen Boudicca has been sold at auction. Boudicca or Boudica was a queen of the ancient Celtic Iceni tribe in the area of England now known as East Anglia. At the end of her reign in 60 or 61 AD the warrior Queen led a rebellion against the Roman annexation of her kingdom, killing 70,000 Romans and setting Colchester, St. Albans and London ablaze. Such was the initial success of the rebellion that Roman Emperor Nero considered withdrawing all his imperial forces from Britain. In the end the rebellion was defeated and Boudicca died shortly afterwards. Her cause of death is not known.

The ancient coin has an Iceni chariot on one side and a three-petalled flower on the other. The Iceni produced some of the earliest known British coins, although there are no coins ascribed or struck by Boudicca directly.  A Celtic coin expert at auctioneers Spink, Gregory Edmund, has stated that the coin would have been current during warrior Queen Boudicca’s lifetime and recognisable as a coin to her. The coin sold for £2,040 and came from a Yorkshire academic’s private collection.