Rainbow cup

As Regenbogenschüsselchen a special type of Celtic gold and silver coins is called in the vernacular, which was in an area that stretched from the territory of today's Hungary through Austria to southern Germany, widespread. They were probably made ​​by the Celtic tribes of the Boii and Vindelici and the Rhine Germans in the period from about 300 BC to the birth of Christ. Another name is " Muschelstatere ". The beginnings of coinage in the Celtic world, however, began with the 1/24 stater.

The bowl-shaped curved and usually unmarked gold pieces are not intuitively recognize as coins. In general, there are only abstract symbolic patterns such as spheres, points, circles or stars or simple representational motifs from the imagery of the Celts as bird heads or snakes.

The name Rainbow Cup was due to the characteristic bowl shape and a superstition that says that the pieces of gold were dripping down from a rainbow and remained at the foot of the rainbow on the earth.

The came to the surface during the plowing of a field Regenbogenschüsselchen were in rains often flushed clean and later discovered on the field because of their metallic luster. Since the origin of the dish-shaped pieces of gold one could not explain the popular belief originated from the Rainbow Cup as heavenly charms, including medicinal effect in epilepsy, seizures, fever and travail was attributed. Presumably, this finding situation forms the core of the fairytale Sterntaler.

The Bohemian numismatist Nicholas Adaukt Voigt took the discovery of the coin hoard of Podmokl 1771 to attend a characterization of the Rainbow Cup found at Podmokl and previously at Nischburg as prehistoric native coins and refuted in various theories of exotic origin.