Animal skin headdress and dog

This isn’t an actual argument yet.  It’s an instinct.   I agree  that this is the half value coin (Sambon 146) which goes with the full value coin (Sambon 145) with an elephant on it (see Baglione 1976).

I think that the obverse is more likely to be a Celtic warrior wearing an animal skin (bear probably) and that some how this is supposed to correlate with the dog.  I’ve a hunch based on the appearance of these coins in regional Italic museums that we should date the series to late 218 early 217 while Hannibal is his winter camp having conquered the Taurini and  working on improving his troop moral and recruiting Italic allies before going to meet the Roman arm near Arretium (Polybius 3.60 onwards).

The problem is I can’t find the text references or images to back my thinking up at least not to my own tastes and I need to move on to other things.

Stuff of possible relevance.

E. Wamer’s Von Bären und Männern. Zeitschrift für Archäologie des Mittelalters 37, 2009, 1-46.  (good images)

M. P. Speidel’s Ancient Germanic Warriors 2004.

And then just to taunt me the internetz keep returning this damn image:

BUT (a few hours later…) Let’s not forget

Aita (=Hades) is personified with a wolfskin headdress in Etruria:

Tomba Golini, Orvieto

Tomb of Orcus II