27 
money bore a stamp and an inscription, attesting tire authority of 
its issue. 
The Greeks in Europe for a long time coined only silver, which 
abounds in the south of Greece. But the kings of Macedonia, 
having got possession of the rich gold mines of Thrace, and com¬ 
manding at the same time the services of the first Athenian artists, 
put forth a gold coinage which is among the best specimens of 
ancient art. The stater of Philip II., of Macedonia, became, through 
the intermediation of Gaul, the type of the coinage of the indepen¬ 
dent Britons, which forms the subject of this paper. 
Two principal discoveries of British coins have been recorded in 
Yorkshire, and both nearly in the same locality. The first was 
made in 1827 at Lightcliffe, near Halifax. Pour Eritish coins were 
found here in conjunction with others of the Eornan Consular and 
Imperial series, the latest being of Caligula and Agrippina. They 
appear to have passed into the museum of a Derbyshire collector 
(Mr. Bateman), like many other Yorkshire antiquities. The second 
find was at Almondbury, one of the places which has been assigned 
as the Cambodunum of the Itinerary. The discovery is thus noticed 
in our Society’s Deport for 1829:—“A considerable number of 
Eoman denarii having been lately found in the vicinity of Hudders¬ 
field, sixteen of the most perfect were purchased for the Society, 
and with them eight very rare and interesting British coins, found 
at the same place, belonging to the class called the coins of 
Cunobelin.” The Lightcliffe find cannot have been deposited before 
about A. d. 40, and probably not much later. The Almondbury 
find, containing only Consular coins, is probably earlier, as their 
issue ceased in the reign of Augustus. Their description, as coins 
of Cunobelin, is indicative of the imperfect classification which then 
prevailed. The pieces bearing his name were first noticed, and as 
they were engraved in Camden and the works of Eegge and 
Stukeley, “ coins of Cunobelin” came to be loosely used to 
describe the whole class of British coins. At present it is possible 
to arrange them in a more precise manner. In the work of Mr. 
Evans, which exhibits the latest results in this branch of numis¬ 
matics, and a series of exact engravings, a local arrangement is 
adopted, partly founded on the legend of the coin, partly on the 
place of discovery, and the frequency of occurrence in a particular 
district. Where the name is one well known to history, as that of 
Cunobelin, there can be no hesitation in ascribing it to the kingdom 
of which first Camulodunum and then Verulamium was the capital, 
