Hispanic coinage

Coins are the archaeological testimony that reveal the most about the cultural and political complexity of the Iberian Peninsula in the last centuries BCE, running up to its integration into the Roman Empire.

With the exception of the series issued by the Carthaginians in the final decades of the 3rd century BCE, as well as a few Roman issues for war purposes, coinage in Iberia was linked to particular cities. Since the Greeks of Emporion (Ampurias, Gerona) began to produce their first coins in the 5th century BCE, more than 150 cities, especially during the 2nd century BCE and part of the 1st century BCE, at some point issued their own coins, with a wide variety of types, weights and scripts.

By the end of the 1st century BCE, the Hispanic cities were fully integrated into the Roman structures. So too were their coins, authentic official documents of the reorganisation carried out by Rome. The Hispano-Roman or 'provincial' mints, now all producing coins in Latin, existed for less than a century, but were one of the marks of identity of the great cities of Hispania.

Hispanic identity remained under Roman forms. As the poet Martial, born in Bilbilis (Calatayud), said in the mid-1st century CE: nos Celtis genitos et ex Hiberis... 'We, born of Celts and Iberians...'