Tasciovanus Stater: Crossed Wreaths (obverse); Horse and Bucranium (Head of Ox) (reverse) (20 BCE–10 CE): Art, History and Details

Tasciovanus Stater: Crossed Wreaths (obverse); Horse and Bucranium (Head of Ox) (reverse) (20 BCE–10 CE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Tasciovanus was the first king of the Catuvellauni to put his name on his coins; otherwise he is completely unknown to history. It is based on earlier coin designs with the addition of a legend containing an abbreviation of his name and a bucranium (head of an ox) above the horse. Often earlier coins are badly executed, causing elements of the design to be cut off, as seen here.

Object facts

• Title: Tasciovanus Stater: Crossed Wreaths (obverse); Horse and Bucranium (Head of Ox) (reverse)
• Date: 20 BCE–10 CE
• Culture: England, Catuvellauni
• Type: Coins
• Technique: gold
• Dimensions: Diameter: 1.7 cm (11/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Numismatics
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1969.150

A detail from the museum

The Catuvellauni were a Celtic tribe or state of southeastern Britain before the Roman conquest.

Collection credit

The Norweb Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art, and Emery May Norweb. English Gold Coins, Ancient to Modern Times, On Loan to the Cleveland Museum of Art from the Norweb Collection. 1968.
• Emery May Norweb Collection (Cleveland, Ohio), Emery May Norweb, C. E. Blunt, F. Elmore Jones, and R. P. Mack. Collection of Ancient British, Romano-British and English Coins. London: Spink, 1971.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.