Exhibition organized by the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya.

Curator: Marta Campo, Head of the Numismatic Cabinet of Catalonia.

The coins struck by the Iberians are a magnificent testimony to the history of these peoples who, from the 6th to the 1st century BC, developed one of the most important cultures in the Iberian Peninsula. The exhibition sets out to analyse everything that the coinage of the Iberians has contributed to the knowledge of their culture. With this aim, the coins are shown accompanied by other objects produced by them.

The first section deals with the earliest appearance of coinage in the Iberian territories and their first mintings, issued above all against the backdrop of the Second Punic War. The next section shows how during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, now under Roman rule, the Iberians opened a large number of workshops minting coins, and also how the Celtiberians struck coinage with similar characteristics.

Finally, the third section analyses the iconographies of the coins, on which we find people, animals and objects that reveal to us the supernatural, mythical world of the Iberians and Celtiberians, as well as their clothing and the weapons they used. The coins always had the name of the issuing city or tribe engraved and, on occasions, the names of people too. These inscriptions are often the only remaining evidence of the names of their cities and the magistrates who governed them.