A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



religious rites and beliefs, an explanation which seems feasible, especially 

 in view of the phallic character of the Cerne Abbas Giant. One writer, 

 Dr. J, S. Phene, F.S.A.,* makes the ingenious suggestion that their 

 purpose was sacrificial, and that they may be the actual figures described 

 by Caesar, formed of osiers and filled with living men, the whole 

 structure and contents being then destroyed by fire. 



The grounds upon which this gigantic figure can be assigned even 

 approximately to any period are, it must be confessed, of a somewhat 

 indefinite and unsatisfactory character. It is pretty certain, however, 

 that it is not modern, and the general character of the form must be 

 pronounced more in accordance with the art of the early than the 

 middle ages. If, however, we may compare these enormous human 

 figures with the gigantic figures of horses (which clearly have a likeness 

 to the figures on ancient British coins), the balance of probability is in 

 favour of referring the Long Men of Wilmington and of Cerne Abbas 

 to the period immediately preceding the appearance of the Romans in 

 Britain. 



Coins of the Ancient Britons 



The ancient British coins found in Sussex are of considerable 

 importance both with regard to their numbers and their variety. They 

 are of gold, silver, copper-gilt, and tin, and it will be convenient to 

 divide them into two groups, viz., (i) those which are uninscribed, and 

 (2) those which are inscribed. 



(i) Utiinscribed coins. — These are of various types, among which 

 are several degraded forms of the horse copied and re-copied from the 

 well-known pieces struck by Philip of Macedon in the fourth century 

 B.C. On the obverse of the Macedonian prototype was a laureate head 

 of Apollo, or possibly of the youthful Hercules. This head and the 

 horses, biga, and charioteer of the reverse, have been converted by un- 

 skilled artists into the large number of grotesque forms we now find on 

 uninscribed British coins. 



The small group of tin coins found at Mount Caburn near Lewes 

 are specially interesting from this point of view, because they are of 

 native British manufacture, they belong to the Late Celtic period of 

 culture, and exhibit very feebly drawn representations of what are 

 supposed to be intended for a head (possibly helmeted) and an animal, 

 perhaps a bull. The attenuated body of the bull may be compared 

 with the White Horse at Ufiington. Uninscribed British coins have 

 been found in upwards of twenty diiferent parishes in Sussex. 



(2) Inscribed coins. — The use of an inscribed coinage in Britain is 

 believed to date from about the year 30 b.c, and from that time we are 

 able to trace in the more or less abbreviated inscriptions on the coins 

 the names of those princes or kings who ruled different parts of the land 

 about the time of the coming of the Romans. 



» Roy. Iiutit. Brit. .-Irchit. Trans. 1872, pp. 19I-2. 

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