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Norfolk Boar Phallic silver unit
Coin 23 · Iceni (Eastern region)
An incomplete, uninscribed East Anglian (Iceni) silver unit: a stylised boar on one face and a prancing horse below a wheel on the other.
- Issuer or group
- Iceni (Eastern region)
- Metal
- Silver unit
- Date (record)
- 20 BC–AD 40
- Catalogue refs (record)
- ABC 1582; BMC 3473–3511
- Specimen
- PAS 807050
- Specimen size
- Not in the record. The model is about 14.1 mm across, estimated from the scale in the photograph.
Obverse. Stylised boar right with pellet eye and a spear piercing the ears, pellets above and one below (record).
Reverse. Horse prancing right, a wheel above with groups of three pellets either side, a phallic motif between pellet groups below (record).
The coin is incomplete. The as-minted view restores the missing outline as our inference; the found view keeps the losses.
Features
| # | Feature | Face | As-minted evidence | On the found coin | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Boar's back | Obverse | Observed in the photo | Partly visible on this find | The long curved line of the boar's back across the top of the face. |
| 2 | Curved haunch | Obverse | Observed in the photo | Partly visible on this find | A crescent-shaped curve at the left end of the back. |
| 3 | Diagonal line (possibly the spear) | Obverse | Observed in the photo | Partly visible on this find | A raised diagonal line below the boar's back, right of centre. |
| 4 | Horse | Reverse | Observed in the photo | Partly visible on this find | The horse's body and neck in the centre of the face. |
| 5 | Wheel | Reverse | Observed in the photo | Partly visible on this find | A ring with spokes above the horse, at the top edge. |
| 6 | Pellet (left of the wheel) | Reverse | Observed in the photo | Survives on this find | A raised dot to the left of the wheel. |
| 7 | Pellets (right of the wheel) | Reverse | Observed in the photo | Partly visible on this find | Raised dots to the right of the wheel. |
| 8 | Curved motif below | Reverse | Observed in the photo | Partly visible on this find | A curved motif with a rounded end, below the horse. |
In the record but not modelled
- Pellet eye of the boar: Named in the record; not identified in the photo.
- Pellets above and below the boar: Named in the record; the dark spots on this face look like corrosion pits, so we do not mark them as pellets.
The found specimen
- Wear
- Moderate to heavy on the boar face: only the back line and a few strokes remain. Moderate on the horse face.
- Corrosion
- Small dark pits on the boar face; dark deposits in the hollows of the horse face.
- Strike
- Both designs are off-centre and run off the flan.
- Completeness
- Incomplete: the flan is broken, leaving an irregular, flattened outline.
These are descriptions, not grades. Thickness in the model: inferred (no weight or thickness recorded): set to 8.5% of the diameter.
Source and licence
Based on a photograph by Andrew Brown / The British Museum, via the Portable Antiquities Scheme and Wikimedia Commons (file page as retrieved, revision 1171299358), licensed CC BY 2.0. Changes: the two faces were cut out of the photograph, rotated and rescaled to a common frame, and used to make an interpretive 3D reconstruction. Depth, the edge and unseen surfaces are inferred, not measured. The as-minted version is further cleaned, restored and recoloured by us.
SHA-256 of the archived original: 0a493b53fca97fbcfcbaf0135b0311ab8f9f491a37be2817c9bd84600c855f8f. Retrieved 2026-10-16.