DescriptionThe name means “bright,” and might refer to their hair color, or perhaps their religious devotion to the Sun.Potin: Collins Dictionary tells us that it is a French word, prounounced “potah,” is an alloy of tin, a bit of copper, and impurities, and is apparently only used in relation to ancient coins. Similar alloys were used to make tokens in 17th and 18th century England. The cast potin coins were a Celtic innovation in coinage manufacture.Celts in Europe found that they liked the idea of coins and started making them themselves. Imitations of Greek and later Roman coins eventually developed into indigenous types.The Celts came out of northern Central Asia as part of the horses and iron nomadic wave of the 8th century BC and later. They found that they liked the pretty Greek coins and made sometimes fanciful imitations of their own.“Ancient Coins” includes Greek and Roman coins and those of neighbors and successors, geographically from Morocco and Spain all the way to Afghanistan. Date ranges for these begin with the world’s earliest coins of the 8th century BC to, in an extreme case, the end of Byzantine Empire, 1453 AD.
