ancientcoins:
Eastern Celts, Burgenland, Kroisbach Type. ca 100–50 BC. AR Tetradrachm. Laureate male head right with broken nose, Celticized / Celticized horseman left, only torso & head with long crest shown atop horse, beneath horse a twisted ground line terminating in a torque at each end Göbl OTA 469/3–4.
This is one of the largest coins struck among the Celtic peoples of Austria. Though the description of the coin describes it as “celticized,” referring to stylized ear on the obverse and the hair and form of the rider on the reverse, this coin owes a great deal of its appearance to the coinage of earlier Hellenistic kings. The short hair of the obverse resembles King Mithridates III of Pontus or Eumenes II of Pergamum, and the diadem mimics many of the kings. Horses are another common motif on Hellenistic coinage as a sign of elite wealth and power.
Burgenland is a province in the east of Austria and was at this time ruled as an independent Celtic kingdom. We do not know the name of its ruler, or much about the area until it’s conquest by the Romans in the 1st century CE.