Crested Head.c.55-40 BC. Silver unit. 12mm. 1.08g. Gaunt head right, with sunken eye socket, angular eyebrow and nose, corded swept-back hair, diagonal beaded line each side of neck, solar daisy, ringed-pellets and small duck-like animal in front./ Curvy horse left, with single tail and threaded neck and body, ringed-pellet and large beaded wheel above, small rings and pellet around. ABC 1013, VA 262, BMC 580-82, S 53. CCI 20.0414 (this coin). EF, lightly toned, impressive head, beautifully onamented. Ex John Follows collection. Found near Andover, Hampshire, 2019. EXTREMELY RARE only ten others recorded, including three in the British Museum.

Follows’ Crested Head is an astonishing head. The plump round chin, thin neck and long earrings (or are they part of an ornate headdress?) persuade us that the head is female, as seem to be the two other heads seen on Berkshire coins, ABC 1007 and 1010. Her divinity is confirmed by the beaded arc over her head. Her all-seeing vision is suggested by her large sunken eye-socket. The big floral sun implies that she’s a consort of the sun-god Belenus. The duck before her forehead (cf. the duck on Follows’ Duck Helmet, ABC 2380, Chris Rudd Auction 170, 17 May 2020, lot 36) indicates riverine and healing attributes. And the many fat little horses (or foals) that crest the top of her head, clearly seen on BMC 580, suggest fertility and that her people (the Berkshire tribe) revere the horse and are probably good at breeding and training them. This shouldn’t surprise us because the Crested Head was probably struck at Dorchester-on-Thames which is only 18 miles east of the Uffington White Horse and because the firm turf of the Berkshire Downs has long been famous for rearing, training and racing horses. So who is this bright-eyed, healing goddess, with strong equine and riverine connections? At first we thought she might be Epona. But Dr Daphne Nash Briggs had a better idea: Brigit, whose name means ‘the high one’ (pers.comm. 1.5.2020). Of all Celtic goddesses Brigit probably had the highest standing in Britain and Ireland, which is why she was adopted as a Christian saint, associated with healing, prophecy, poetry, fertility and the protection of livestock, especially cows (those fat little ‘horses’ on BMC 580 could well be fat little cows). Just as the goddess Sabrina is associated with the River Severn, Matrona with the River Marne and Sequana (another ducky deity) with the River Seine, so too may Brigit have been linked with the River Thames, or at least this part of it. There are two small etymological points which may be of interest here. The county name Berkshire, Anglo-Saxon Bearruc-scir, is derived from British barro ‘top, summit, highest place’, which may refer to Brigit ‘the high one’ as well as to the Berkshire Downs. Dorchester-on-Thames, which was probably the centre of the Berkshire tribe, was originally called Dorcic which is derived from the root derk- in Breton derch, Welsh drych ‘aspect’, Old Irish dercaim ‘I see’ (note that), Old English torht ‘bright’; so Dorcic may mean ‘bright or splendid place’, and may also refer to the bright-eyed, all-seeing goddess who presided over it 2000 years ago. Follows’ fabulous Crested Head – the nicest we’ve had – is important because it clearly shows that the eye of the goddess has been deliberately enlarged to highlight her all-seeing vision, even at night. It also clearly shows the beaded arc over her head, the duck and the radiant sun in front of her face, her slender neck and diagonal line each side of it.