StarDestroyer.Net BBS

LONDON – A treasure hunter has found about 52,500 Roman coins, one of the largest such discoveries ever in Britain, officials said Thursday.

The hoard, which was valued at 3.3 million pounds ($5 million), includes hundreds of coins bearing the image of Marcus Aurelius Carausius, who seized power in Britain and northern France in the late third century and proclaimed himself emperor.

Dave Crisp, a treasure hunter using a metal detector, located the coins in April in a field in southwestern England, according to the Somerset County Council and the Portable Antiquities Scheme.

The coins were buried in a large jar about a foot (30 centimeters) deep and weighed about 160 kilograms (350 pounds) in all.

Crisp said a "funny signal" from his metal detector prompted him to start digging.

"I put my hand in, pulled out a bit of clay and there was a little radial, a little bronze Roman coin — very, very small, about the size of my fingernail," Crisp said in an interview with the BBC.

He recovered about 20 coins before discovering that they were in a pot, and realized he needed expert help.

"Because Mr. Crisp resisted the temptation to dig up the coins it has allowed archaeologists from Somerset County Council to carefully excavate the pot and its contents, ensuring important evidence about the circumstances of its burial was preserved," said Anna Booth, of Somerset Council.

Somerset Coroner Tony Williams scheduled an inquest Thursday to formally determine whether the find is subject to the Treasure Act, a formal step toward determining a price to be paid by any institution which wishes to acquire the hoard.

The hoard is one of the largest ever found in Britain, and will reveal more about the nation's history in the third century, said Roger Bland, of the British Museum. The find includes more than 760 coins from the reign of Carausius, the Roman naval officer who seized power in 286 and ruled until he was assassinated in 293.

"The late third century A.D. was a time when Britain suffered barbarian invasions, economic crises and civil wars," Bland said.

"Roman rule was finally stabilized when the Emperor Diocletian formed a coalition with the Emperor Maximian, which lasted 20 years. This defeated the separatist regime which had been established in Britain by Carausius.

"This find presents us with an opportunity to put Carausius on the map. School children across the country have been studying Roman Britain for decades, but are never taught about Carausius our lost British emperor."

The discovery of the Roman coins follows last year's discovery of a hoard of Anglo-Saxon coins in central England. The so-called Staffordshire Hoard included more than 1,500 objects, mostly made from gold.

The Portable Antiquities Scheme is a department of the British Museum which deals with treasure finds.

Crossroads Inc. wrote:I'd classify this more as "Off topic" then history...

Though the historical implications of finding so many coins is immense. 52,000 basically equals 52,000 pictures historians can gleen new information from.

Dates, historical figures, images of cities at the time. Quite a find.

Thanas wrote:

Dates, historical figures, images of cities at the time. Quite a find.

Images of cities? Where are you getting that from?

Twigler wrote:I'd be very curious to find out why that pot was buried there. The article mentioned the usual religious sacrificial option, but I think that's far too early to say.

Out of curiosity, what would happen with the coins minted by a deposed emperor / king? Would their successor go out of his way to take them out of circulation to erase the memory, or just leave them be?

Liberty wrote:My grandfather is very into coin collecting (he has even written a book), and is always excited about finds like this. He has a run of coins of all the emperors, except for three or so that are too rare, and has shown me the entire set, explaining the history of each one, each emperor, etcetera (it took four hours).

I attended a coin seminar with him on Roman coins back in 2005, and I actually own a couple (low value) Roman coins. It's fascinating stuff. Makes me want to go to England and play around with a metal detector.

Thanas wrote:

Twigler wrote:I'd be very curious to find out why that pot was buried there. The article mentioned the usual religious sacrificial option, but I think that's far too early to say.

Indeed. May also very well be buried due to Raiders.

Thanas wrote:

Out of curiosity, what would happen with the coins minted by a deposed emperor / king? Would their successor go out of his way to take them out of circulation to erase the memory, or just leave them be?

They's be taken out of circulation, though how effective that would be considering the size of the Empire is another question, which is why we still find usurper coins. The Roman Empire only had a very small bureucracy (less than a single modern government department) so its ability to really interfere with the lives of its citizens was very, very limited.

Thanas wrote:

Liberty wrote:My grandfather is very into coin collecting (he has even written a book), and is always excited about finds like this. He has a run of coins of all the emperors, except for three or so that are too rare, and has shown me the entire set, explaining the history of each one, each emperor, etcetera (it took four hours).

Cool. I am guessing he mainly collected sesterces and denarii?

I attended a coin seminar with him on Roman coins back in 2005, and I actually own a couple (low value) Roman coins. It's fascinating stuff. Makes me want to go to England and play around with a metal detector.

France is a far better choice for that, as it probably is the region with the most Roman coins buried there.

Liberty wrote:I did not know that. For some reason I only hear about finds in England.

Also, I've heard that the collapse of the Soviet Union has brought more coins to light in the eastern Europe area. Interesting how politics can effect things like that.

Twigler wrote:

Thanas wrote:

Twigler wrote:I'd be very curious to find out why that pot was buried there. The article mentioned the usual religious sacrificial option, but I think that's far too early to say.

Indeed. May also very well be buried due to Raiders.

that's what my first thought was, hide a big pot of cash under the ground for when things stabilize again (which didn't really happen until after 300AD). Then the person hiding it is forced to flee /drafted in the army and killed / or just killed by raiders and no one knows the pot is there.

Steel wrote:This is a bit confusing. Isn't 52,000 coins worth a huge amount of money? I recall one of my latin texts having something about building an aqueduct 'only' costing something like 300,000 sestertii,

so 52,000 coins of a mixture of sestertii and denarii would be worth a fortune.

Could one individual bury such a large amount of money and then have something random happen to them? Surely they would have the means to protect themselves/flee if they had time to bury this.

Perhaps this was part of someones underground vault?

Steel wrote:This is a bit confusing. Isn't 52,000 coins worth a huge amount of money? I recall one of my latin texts having something about building an aqueduct 'only' costing something like 300,000 sestertii, so 52,000 coins of a mixture of sestertii and denarii would be worth a fortune.

The Dark wrote:

Steel wrote:This is a bit confusing. Isn't 52,000 coins worth a huge amount of money? I recall one of my latin texts having something about building an aqueduct 'only' costing something like 300,000 sestertii, so 52,000 coins of a mixture of sestertii and denarii would be worth a fortune.

To the best of my knowledge, we don't have pay records from that time period, but Duncan-Jones estimated in Structure and Scale in the Roman Economy that during Diocletian's reign a legionary earned about 12,500 denarii per annum.

Thanas wrote:

The Dark wrote:

Steel wrote:This is a bit confusing. Isn't 52,000 coins worth a huge amount of money? I recall one of my latin texts having something about building an aqueduct 'only' costing something like 300,000 sestertii, so 52,000 coins of a mixture of sestertii and denarii would be worth a fortune.

To the best of my knowledge, we don't have pay records from that time period, but Duncan-Jones estimated in Structure and Scale in the Roman Economy that during Diocletian's reign a legionary earned about 12,500 denarii per annum.

We do have pay records, they survive in Papyri from Egypt. And you're numbers are off. The 12500 figure is accepted only for Cohort commanders or centuriones. The average legionnairy earned about 600-1200 a year.