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Norfolk God Moustache silver unit
Coin 21 · Iceni (Eastern region)
An incomplete, uninscribed East Anglian (Iceni) silver unit: a male head right, recorded as moustached, and a prancing horse.
- Issuer or group
- Iceni (Eastern region)
- Metal
- Silver unit
- Date (record)
- AD 10–40 (replacement record dates)
- Catalogue refs (record)
- ABC 1567
- Specimen
- PAS 870851
- Specimen size
- Not in the record. The model is about 15.1 mm across, estimated from the scale in the photograph.
Obverse. Male bust right with braided hair and moustache (record).
Reverse. Horse prancing right with a cabled mane, a lozenge between the legs and a braided 'pelta' above (record).
The coin is incomplete. The as-minted view restores the missing part of the outline as our inference; the found view keeps the break.
The surface looks brassy in the photo, but the record identifies the coin as silver. We do not judge the metal from colour in a photo.
Features
| # | Feature | Face | As-minted evidence | On the found coin | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Face | Obverse | Observed in the photo | Survives on this find | The face, outlined by a raised curve, at the right of the coin. |
| 2 | Eye | Obverse | Observed in the photo | Survives on this find | An almond-shaped eye in the middle of the face. |
| 3 | Curved band behind the face | Obverse | Observed in the photo | Survives on this find | A curved raised band running down behind the face. |
| 4 | Hair | Obverse | Observed in the photo | Partly visible on this find | A rough, lumpy area behind and above the face, where the hair is. |
| 5 | Horse | Reverse | Observed in the photo | Partly visible on this find | The rounded forms of the horse's body and neck across the centre. |
| 6 | Cabled line | Reverse | Observed in the photo | Survives on this find | A line of slanting, rope-like strokes in the upper left. |
In the record but not modelled
- Moustache: Named in the record and in the type name; we cannot pick it out confidently on this photo.
- Lozenge between the horse's legs: Named in the record; not identified in the photo.
- Braided 'pelta' above the horse: Named in the record; not identified separately from the cabled line in the photo.
The found specimen
- Wear
- Moderate: the face outline and eye are clear, but the hair and the horse's legs are softened.
- Corrosion
- Dark red-brown deposits over the hair area; the rest of the surface looks brassy in the photo. The record gives silver; colour in a photo is not evidence of the alloy.
- Strike
- The head sits to the right of centre; the edge of the design reaches the rim at the right.
- Completeness
- Incomplete: a large piece is missing from the left side of the head face (the lower left of the horse face).
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 Alexander Bliss / Suffolk County Council, via the Portable Antiquities Scheme and Wikimedia Commons (file page as retrieved, revision 1088044109), 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: 8f40216b5d0d28323adf8453ddb44af9fce3dd0dba82cb8b2349d1031e2e9763. Retrieved 2026-10-16.