Huge Hoard of Ancient Roman Silver Coins Worth £200,000 Found During Treasure Hunt

Ancient Origins

Fisherman and amateur historian Mike Smale, was hunting for treasure with friends from the Southern Detectorists club when he found a hoard of ancient silver Roman coins potentially worth £200,000. Experts suggest that the discovery is very important as it will shed light on the history of Roman Britain.

Unexpected Discovery of Roman Treasure T
he amateur treasure hunter and historian saw his dreams come true by using a simple metal detector. The 600 Roman Denarii were discovered in a field in Bridport, where Mike Smale and friends from the Southern Detectorists club were hunting in hope to find something big. The treasure “hunting” was organized by Sean MacDonald, who as hoping to witness the discovery of an important treasure. All of a sudden, Smale’s detector started beeping insistently, moments before Smale would discover the first of what turn out to be a huge quantity of coins. "It was incredible, a true once-in-a-lifetime find,” Smale said as The Herald reports.

Mike Smale (left) detected the coins on farmland managed by Anthony Butler (right) (Image: SWNS)

Wasting no time, Smale called over the officials, who sectioned off the area, “I had a good idea about what it was. I had already found one or two Roman denarii that morning. When I dug a hole I saw two coins sticking out the bottom of it, so I called Sean over to have a look at it,” the man said as The Herald reports. “It's a great find, my biggest one, but I shan't be giving it up. It's great fun and I'm sticking with it,” Smale added.

Additionally, an ecstatic MacDonald, couldn’t believe that he had finally witnessed the discovery of a massive hoard, "Bridport is a cracking area anyway, it's very rich in history, but a find like this is unprecedented. I've never seen a hoard of this size before. We found one in Somerset last year but there were just 180, and they weren't of the same caliber. I was elated and shaking because this is a once in a lifetime find,” he stated at the The Herald reports.

The stash of over 600 coins were found during an organised metal detector hunt in Bridport, Dorset, UK (Image: SWNS)

Certain Objects Date Back to Mark Antony and Cleopatra’s Era
Some of the metal disks were minted during the era Roman general Mark Antony was allied with Cleopatra in Egypt and experts now suggest that an archaeological discovery of this size and variety is extremely rare. "The archaeologists excavating it couldn't believe what they were seeing because these coins are so rare. I personally think a find of this size and variety will never be found again," MacDonald told The Herald.

The Meeting of Antony and Cleopatra by Lawrence Alma Tadema (Public Domain)

Numismatist and coin expert Dominic Chorney, said after examining photos of the coins that some of them depict Gods, and were issued by the Roman Republic a few centuries before the birth of Jesus Christ. In a long and detailed statement, Mr. Chorney explains as The Herald reports,

"Others, which feature a distinctive galley - a type of Roman vessel - were minted by Mark Antony while he was allied with his lover Cleopatra in Egypt, between the Autumn of 32 BC to the Spring of 31. They each celebrate the various legions under his command. Antony's coins circulated widely in the Roman Empire, and have certainly traveled a long way.

Republican coins and those of Antony were issued before the Roman Invasion of Britain in AD 43, and would have drifted over in the pockets of Roman soldiers and citizens alike. Others were issued by emperors who ruled during the first century AD. One I can see in the photograph was struck for the ill-fated emperor Otho, who only ruled for three months in (January to April AD 69), during the civil wars which followed the assassination of the notorious emperor Nero.”

Ultimately, Mr. Chorney didn’t forget to mention that the discovery of these coins could possibly reveal new information about Roman Britain’s history, "Coin finds such as this are fascinating, and are incredibly important in shedding light on the history of Roman Britain," he said as the The Herald reports. The coins will be handed over to the coroner for valuation and then likely sold to a museum, with the profits split between the farmer and Smale.

Top image: A handful of the rare Roman coins that were part of the hoard (Credit: SWNS)

By Theodoros Karasavvas

Archaeology Student Discovers Amphora Full of 200 Silver Roman Coins

Ancient Origins

The archaeological site of Empúries (Ampurias), located in the province of Girona, Catalonia, Spain, is a unique site in the Iberian Peninsula which contains both the ruins of a Greek city -the colonial enclave of Emporion, founded in 575 BC - and a larger, later Roman city which took over from the intermediate Roman military camps. This special mix of time periods gives the archaeological site a privileged role in the understanding of the evolution of Greek and Roman urban sites at the edge of the Mediterranean thousands of years ago.

According to data provided by Canal Patrimonio (Canal Heritage), an International Archaeology Course is organized for this site each year. Although this activity has been enriching knowledge of the site for the past 70 years, excavations there continue to provide more details on ancient life. For example, a student enrolled in the course during the current campaign has recently made an exciting discovery - an amphora holding two hundred silver coins - denarii (singular ‘denarius’).
In addition, other students coming from Spain, Portugal, and Italy have also discovered a small bronze ladle, known as a 'simpulum' (a large spoon/ladle used to extract wine), the remains of a dozen amphorae that were used to store wine, and various ancient structures.

The recently discovered simpulum (ladle used for extracting wine) can be seen partially uncovered at the top of this photo. (National Geographic / Archaeology Museum of Catalonia)

Guillermo Ortiz, a student of the University Pablo de Olavide in Sevilla discovered the amphora with the Roman denarii. His finding is one that the Archaeology Museum of Catalonia does not hesitate to qualify as a "treasure" due to the number of silver pieces.

Meanwhile, National Geographic explains that the 200 coins were found in good condition within a ceramic amphora that was apparently hidden by its owner in the 1st century BC due to a fire that hit his/her home. The silver coins have been tentatively dated to between the years 115 and 81 BC. They have representations of Rome (a figure and a helmet), animals (elephants) and other symbols (e.g. Victory) depicted on them.

Fieldwork during the current excavations at Ampurias. (Canal Patrimonio/EFE)

The bronze simpulum and the wine amphorae are mostly of Italian origin and correspond to a cellar of a Roman domus (house). Part of this structure had already been excavated, such as some private rooms, a kitchen space, etc. This house apparently belonged to a wealthy family and occupied the southern sector of the so-called Insula 30: a set of buildings that housed the public baths and was located between two main streets in Roman Ampurias.

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Silver denarii were a benchmark in ancient Rome well into the imperial era, with magistrates being responsible for the minting of the coins. Most of the 200 pieces that were discovered come from central Italy, and since they have a good state of preservation, it is expected more data will be obtained from them after they are better identified and catalogued. Based on documents found in Pompeii and other ancient Roman sites, a person could have lived quite comfortably for some time with the value of the recovered coins.

Roman mosaics in ancient Ampurias. (Caos30/CC BY SA 4.0)

The results of the excavations from July 2016 will be very important as they provide a look at the initial phases of the Roman settlement of Ampurias – a time when the subsequent amendments made ​​during the Augustan age had yet to take place.
Top Image: The Roman silver coins that were recently discovered in Ampurias, Spain and the amphora in which they were held. Source: Canal Patrimonio/EFE
By Mariló T. A.
This article was first published in Spanish at https://www.ancient-origins.es and has been translated with permission.

Old Money: Rare Roman 'Nero' Coin Unearthed in England

By Tia Ghose

A rare aureus, or gold coin embossed with the image of Emperor Nero was unearthed in a Roman-Era site in England
Credit: © Vindolanda Trust

A rare gold coin from the Roman Empire has been unearthed in England.
Archaeologists found the valuable coin, which is embossed with the image of the hated Emperor Nero and dates to between A.D. 64 and 65, at a site in Northern England. The archaeological site, called Vindolanda, was once a Roman fort near Hadrian's Wall.
"My first find at Vindolanda nearly 20 years ago was a coin, but because of their scarcity, I didn't think for a moment that I would ever see a gold coin unearthed at the site. It was an absolutely magical moment for the whole team," Justin Blake, the deputy director of excavations at the site, said in a statement.

The weighty piece of currency, called an aureus, would have equaled more than half of a soldier's yearly salary at the time.
Rare find
A volunteer, Marcel Albert from France, unearthed the ancient coin in a layer of sediments that dated to the fourth century and that various archaeological teams had thoroughly scoured over several decades. Though the site has yielded thousands of coins over the years, none have been gold.
"I thought it can't be true. It was just sitting there as I scraped back the soil, shining, as if someone had just dropped it," Albert said in the statement.
The fact that the coin is much older than the archaeological layer in which it was found suggests it had been circulating for more than 300 years before it was lost.
Hated figure
Emperor Nero was one of the most controversial figures of the Roman era. He rose to power at the tender age of 16 under his mother's thumb, but went on to murder her and at least one of his wives.
He was also suspected of starting the great fire of Rome and then pinning the blame on Christians. He then executed many of them, burning the religious minority for sources of light in the evenings, setting wild dogs upon them or nailing them to crosses, according to the annals of Roman historian Tacitus.
In order to build an opulent, golden palace in Rome, Nero scrambled for financing, searching for the lost treasure of Queen Dido of Carthage and even looting treasures from Greek and Roman temples, the annals read.
The emperor then issued more gold coins than previous emperors had done, though the coins were noticeably slimmer than in the past.
Emperor Nero was eventually ousted from power in a rebellion in A.D. 68 and committed suicide before he could be executed.

http://www.livescience.com/46420-rare-roman-coin-unearthed.html