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Parisii (Gaul), AV Stater (gold coin replica) 3rd - 2nd century
BC.
OBV: Stylized head right.
R: Crude disjoined horse galloping left. Above sail ornament,
beneath circle of large pellets with one central pellet.
From Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia:
The Parisii (or Quarisii)
were a Celtic
Iron
Age people that lived on the banks of the river Seine
(in Latin, Sequana)
in Gaul
from the middle of the third century B.C. until the Roman era. They are
also attested in north-eastern Britain.
Their chief city (oppidum)
was Lutetia
Parisiorum, which later became an important city in the Roman
province of Gallia
Lugdunensis and ultimately the modern city of Paris.
(The name Paris is derived from Parisii).
With the Suessiones,
the Parisii participated in the general rising of Vercingetorix
against Julius
Caesar in 52 B.C. Following their defeat some may at this time have
fled to Britain although it is more likely that Parisii had already
colonised part of the island before this time and preceding the waves of
Belgic
immigration.
The Romano-British
Parisii tribe of East Yorkshire and Humberside
in Britain
is traditionally seen as being comprised of emigrants from the tribe of
the same name based in Gaul. The burial processes of the Gaulish and
British tribes differ slightly but the Iron
Age Arras
Culture which settled around East Yorkshire in the early La
Tène period shows distinctive continental influence. Barry
Cunliffe states that the Arras Culture, which is associated with the
Parisii demonstrates economic and social continuity from the 5th century
BC onwards however and the view that the East Yorkshire Parisii were a
colony of the Gaulish Parisii is may be a simplistic one.
Burials involving placing
the deceased in a wheeled vehicle beneath square barrows
are found in both the Marne
region of France and in the British Parisii homeland which was
considered proof of a genetic link. An alternative explanation to a folk
movement however is that the British Arras culture was an attempt by
some of the native Britons attempt to ape continental society. It may be
that the upper echelons of British society were trying to distinguish
themselves by copying foreign ways. The vehicle burial aspect of the
culture developed in Britain in the third and second centuries BC which
suggests that it was adopted independently and prior to the historic
defeat of Vercingetorix. Alternatively the practice may have been
forgotten and then re-introduced by an immigrant group.
Either way, it is clear
from the archaeological record that the two Parisii groups had a close
affinity
There is some speculation
by genealogists that the modern surnames Paris, Parrish, O'Parish, etc.
have origins in the Parisii. |
