Sir William Betham
Published: 2013-09
Total Pages: 80
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1842 edition. Excerpt: ...on the locality where these coins have been discovered. The currency of money keeps it in motion; great quantities of Saxon money, and the coins of our early English monarchs, are found in Ireland, bearing the mint marks of London, York, &c. and other places in England, and those minted in different cities and towns of Ireland are found scattered over the whole surface of the island; so, doubtless it was with the British and Gaulish Coins, which, in all their symbols and devices, exhibit proof that they are the work of the same race of people, and derived from the same source. There exists, however, a propensity with our numismatists, as well as our academics, to derive all appearances of civilization from the Greeks and Romans, which being taught and cherished as carefully and fondly as the dogmas of the schools, or the principles of religion, it is considered presumptuous folly, to doubt its accuracy. I shall, notwithstanding, venture to do so. These interesting remains of remote antiquity supply unanswerable testimony of the great and important truth of the identity of the Celts of Gaul, and the British Islands, with the Etrusco-Phoenicians. Many of these coins are of greater antiquity than the oldest Greek, and most of them were copied from Etruscan, not Greek, models. In the plates of Etruscan Coins will be found specimens of design, art, and execution, equal to the best efforts of modern times, and upon them are to be seen the leading devices and symbols appearing on the Gaulish and British Coins, which, though rude, when compared with the Etruscan as works of art, yet upon them are the identical emblems. The epigraphs also, in the same language, are significant, and assist in demonstrating their origin. Italy was the first...