Large hoard of Roman coins found within spitting distance of my family home!

[Deinomenid]

Though I am a transplant to the US, Deinomenid Towers nestles in the heart of a Tolkien-esque part of western England. From my quarters there I can see not one but two iron age forts and one barrow, some of the lanes are sunken well below ground level from use over the  millennia, many houses are very old indeed (I discovered a charnel house when wandering as a child!), and I can't take 5 steps without stepping in sheep poo. Now that the scene is set, my neighbour's land recently had a huge  hoard  discovered on it, which is now publicly discussed.  

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gxnjq3ye0o

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-save-the-worcestershire-conquest-hoard

It has  Roman Republic, Iron Age and Imperial coins in  it, including what they say (I have no clue) is the largest find of Nero's  coins in the UK. I have no idea if this  is hyperbole, but ""It's the most miraculous thing I've seen over the last 100 years," a  UCL professor said.

Note how the one gold coin is artfully placed on top of the pile!

I know the area well, it has had a number of finds, including declared ones, but this was just a few fields - yes  that's a  unit  of measurement we use there- over from us. Time to re-migrate, clear the sheep off our land, buy a magnet  on a string and start digging.

Why can't  upstate New York  have  Greek hoards lying around?? Though the ground is so flipping hard it  bends spades.

 

Edited December 2, 2024 by Deinomenid
typo

[Rand]

Malvern Hills is one of my favourite places anywhere. We spent countless weekends walking them, and we miss them thoroughly after leaving the nearby city. There is something magical about those hills - the cave, the quarry, the Bronze Age Shire Ditch. The views from the British Camp are breathtaking. The story says that British Camp was where Caractacus had his last stand against the Romans. I always felt there must have been treasures around, and I am sure there are many to be found yet.

 

Photos from the phone don't do them any justice, I am afraid.

 

 

 

 

[mcwyler]

4 hours ago, Deinomenid said:

Though I am a transplant to the US, Deinomenid Towers nestles in the heart of a Tolkien-esque part of western England. From my quarters there I can see not one but two iron age forts and one barrow, some of the lanes are sunken well below ground level from use over the  millennia, many houses are very old indeed (I discovered a charnel house when wandering as a child!), and I can't take 5 steps without stepping in sheep poo. Now that the scene is set, my neighbour's land recently had a huge  hoard  discovered on it, which is now publicly discussed.  

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gxnjq3ye0o

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-save-the-worcestershire-conquest-hoard

It has  Roman Republic, Iron Age and Imperial coins in  it, including what they say (I have no clue) is the largest find of Nero's  coins in the UK. I have no idea if this  is hyperbole, but ""It's the most miraculous thing I've seen over the last 100 years," a  UCL professor said.

Note how the one gold coin is artfully placed on top of the pile!

I know the area well, it has had a number of finds, including declared ones, but this was just a few fields - yes  that's a  unit  of measurement we use there- over from us. Time to re-migrate, clear the sheep off our land, buy a magnet  on a string and start digging.

Why can't  upstate New York  have  Greek hoards lying around?? Though the ground is so flipping hard it  bends spades.

 

"It's the most miraculous thing I've seen over the last 100 years," a  UCL professor said.

 

Makes you want to know what wonders this ancient professor saw 100 years ago!

[Deinomenid]

17 minutes ago, Rand said:

I always felt there must have been treasures around

The area must be FULL of treasures. There's a good old book on local antiquities- photo below - I bought ages ago that had a letter in it from the squire of Aldington Manor in 1884 (20 miles away) who said "I have found evidence of the Romans in nearly all my best fields."   

The run from Worcestershire Beacon to Herefordshire  Beacon/British Camp  is one of my favourite anywhere, though its turning into more of a jog these days!  I always found it strange that the former is the highest point looking east until you hit the Urals.

 

[John Conduitt]

I have an Eisu but quite a lot less valuable!

Eisu ‘Oxo’ Unit, 20-43

Dobunni. Silver, 13mm, 1.07g. Stylised head right, ringed-pellets and crescents around. Triple-tailed annulate horse l, [EI] above, SV below (ABC 2081; VA 1110; S 382).

The Dobunni symbol is this tree, which I think would be on the other side of the gold coin they found.

Catti ‘Tree Type’ Fourée Stater Core, 1-20

Dobunni. Bronze, 18mm, 3.47g. Tree. Disjointed horse with triple tail right; ornaments around, wheel with uneven spokes below; CATTI above (cf ABC 2057; cf Van Arsdell 1130-1). Catti (‘the cat’) ruled after Corio and possibly inherited the northern Dobunnic lands from Bodvoc.
 

5 hours ago, Deinomenid said:

including what they say (I have no clue) is the largest find of Nero's  coins in the UK

This is very likely since you don't get many Nero coins in the UK, at least not in hoards. I think they had difficulty getting enough coins this far from Rome. Most hoards from the early Roman occupation are either full of Republic or Celtic coins, or from 100 years later.

Edited December 2, 2024 by John Conduitt

[AncientJoe]

In my hometown in the US, the historical preservationists designate anything built around 1890 as a landmark... they'd lose their minds if they grew up in the UK where 1890 is comparatively modern!

[John Conduitt]

4 minutes ago, AncientJoe said:

In my hometown in the US, the historical preservationists designate anything built around 1890 as a landmark... they'd lose their minds if they grew up in the UK where 1890 is comparatively modern!

To be fair, even in the UK anything built before 1900 could well have some sort of restriction on it to stop you knocking it down or over-developing it. The suburbs were built long after the 1860s when the rail lines were built and many city centres were bombed during WW2 and are modern now. Then again, there are many hundreds of churches built as long as a thousand years ago.

[Ancient Coin Hunter]

Here's the famous piece jillion siliqua piece that was found along the 405 in LA. (Just kidding). Curious as to how the medallion got there, unless Valentinian was vacationing in SoCal at the time. 

[DonnaML]

28 minutes ago, John Conduitt said:

To be fair, even in the UK anything built before 1900 could well have some sort of restriction on it to stop you knocking it down or over-developing it. The suburbs were built long after the 1860s when the rail lines were built and many city centres were bombed during WW2 and are modern now. Then again, there are many hundreds of churches built as long as a thousand years ago.

Are there really that many existing churches in the UK built before the Norman Conquest, which isn't quite 1,000 years ago yet? I remember seeing only one Saxon church when I was in the South of England. 

[wuntbedruv]

13 minutes ago, DonnaML said:

Are there really that many existing churches in the UK built before the Norman Conquest, which isn't quite 1,000 years ago yet? I remember seeing only one Saxon church when I was in the South of England. 

There aren't as many as are medieval 'rebuilds' of the 13th century onwards, but there are a fair few which contain major pre-conquest architectural elements. More than 30, I would reckon. There are fewer which have more Anglo-Saxon than medieval elements, though they do exist. Only four 'complete' Anglo-Saxon churches in England, IIRC.

If you go into any medieval parish church in England you will find re-used fabric from the late 10th, 11th and 12th century buildings they replaced. My village church, for example, has a probable 11th century doorway and the tower is mostly 12th century, but the chancel and nave are 13th-14th century and the north aisle a Victorian addition.

[Deinomenid]

56 minutes ago, DonnaML said:

Are there really that many existing churches in the UK

There are loads of bits of churches, as @wuntbedruv says but few wholly so. The crypts though are more often Anglo-Saxon. The crypt at my college was (is!) 1130 which is seen as pretty old, the crypt at my school (fudging slightly as  it was an old school, founded  in the 7th century in some form and refounded under Henry VIII so it really was a cathedral-school and we just used its crypt occasionally!) was late 11th century, though it featured an old door with a supposedly human skin on  it with a notice said was of a killed Danish marauder coming up the river presumably earlier if true! Who knows and apparently several other places make this claim...but it helps one consider one's mortality even at a young age...)

My village church was founded on land donated by a 10th century king of the English, Edgar, but it wasn't finished until 1100ish.  

[kirispupis]

I've always been jealous of the history that can be found throughout most of Europe.

The lands of my birth house were first settled in 1972. Where I live now is considerably older, with my house constructed in 1964. Going a bit further back, Joseph Smith lived  not far from my birth house and we also had the Erie Canal too, the source of several folk songs we were forced to memorize as children and still can't forget.

I once found several pennies from the 1980's in my backyard...

[Sulla80]

14 minutes ago, kirispupis said:

I've always been jealous of the history that can be found throughout most of Europe.

The lands of my birth house were first settled in 1972. Where I live now is considerably older, with my house constructed in 1964. Going a bit further back, Joseph Smith lived  not far from my birth house and we also had the Erie Canal too, the source of several folk songs we were forced to memorize as children and still can't forget.

I once found several pennies from the 1980's in my backyard...

There might be some evidence of earlier history in the areas where you've lived, perhaps hard to find with a metal detector.

[Deinomenid]

2 hours ago, DonnaML said:

I remember seeing only one Saxon church

I forgot to mention - not Saxon but Norse. Lots of just England was of course not Anglo-Saxon. A cousin lives by a church with Viking (loose term, but likely  Norwegian in this case) runes,  carvings and a hogshead  tomb with the legend of Sigurd and Sigmund on it. My photos of it are terrible,  but this site shows it well. As it says, the carvings are "robust not refined". 

https://www.greatenglishchurches.co.uk/html/_heysham_-_halton.html

These  rock-cut  graves close by, overlooking the sea are quite moving.

 

[DonnaML]

I grew up in a very old apartment building, dating all the way back to 1908! The one I live in now was built in the 1920s, so it isn't quite so ancient.

It is, however, true that the house where my mother spent her summers as a child, and where my maternal grandmother was born -- and six generations of my grandmother's family before her were born and/or lived -- has been dated by dendrochronology to the 1560s. It was originally part of the  complex of the Schloss where the Margrave of Baden-Durlach had his residence at the time; an old plan shows that the cooper lived there. Here's a photo of the house from the 1910's; that's my great-grandfather standing in a window.

The cellar, in a photo I took in 1972, several decades after my family lost the house:

I've visited again much more recently, with my son. The house had been modernized since the last time I was there, although you can still tell that it's really, really old from parts of the interior. 

There's part of an old Roman wall nearby, and an ancient salt mine.  And an early Romanesque church down the street (originally used by a Benedictine monastery), first mentioned in a document dated AD 993:

 

Not too far away, the double tombstone of two of my 7th-great-grandparents, both of whom died in 1726:

If my family still owned the house, I can guarantee that I would have gotten busy long ago in the cellar and back yard with a metal detector and shovel!

Edited December 3, 2024 by DonnaML

[Deinomenid]

I spoke with the would-be owners just now, and as is so often the case things are never quite as reported - aside from that the hoard is really unusual. The BM is some way off valuing it, 100k is a best (optimistically low) guess, and  they need to raise far more than 6k. I was thinking (hence the conversation) of a tax-advantaged donation via a sale of a few of my Syracuse coins to get them there but it appears they need a Kimonian dekadrachm's worth and even then they need to bend the knee before the national lottery fund, an apparently capricious entity. Still, I wish my current locale  had to wrestle with such issues as funding locally-discovered hoards!

[Mucius Scaevola]

https://chronicle.lu/category/culture/52478-4th-century-roman-gold-coins-discovered-in-northern-luxembourg

 

Had the same just recently, 5min from the town I live in. If I only knew...😎

[wuntbedruv]

46 minutes ago, Deinomenid said:

I spoke with the would-be owners just now, and as is so often the case things are never quite as reported - aside from that the hoard is really unusual. The BM is some way off valuing it, 100k is a best (optimistically low) guess, and  they need to raise far more than 6k. I was thinking (hence the conversation) of a tax-advantaged donation via a sale of a few of my Syracuse coins to get them there but it appears they need a Kimonian dekadrachm's worth and even then they need to bend the knee before the national lottery fund, an apparently capricious entity. Still, I wish my current locale  had to wrestle with such issues as funding locally-discovered hoards!

I would be interested to know about the circumstances of discovery. The hoard was found during building work - was that during an archaeological project associated with building work or was it a chance, unexpected find by actual builders themselves?

[NewStyleKing]

Since the museum has catalogued them I wonder why they don't publish them, they've had them for months!  Museums eh! Sounds like 1 Caesar elephant & snake, any legionary coins? I see lots of Tiberius. 

[Deinomenid]

55 minutes ago, NewStyleKing said:

Since the museum has catalogued them I wonder why they don't publish them

They are with the BM. I only spoke with the regional one who are the ones trying to raise the funds. They told me some details but I’m afraid while not tone deaf to the types, I wasn’t really following the details. I’ll ask!

1 hour ago, wuntbedruv said:

would be interested to know about the circumstances of discovery.

They weren’t very forthcoming but the parish isn’t exactly a hotbed of building activity and as it was close to “me” it’s likely to be barn building adjacent to a farm. I’m speculating, but not wholly idly.
 

 

[kirispupis]

3 hours ago, Mucius Scaevola said:

https://chronicle.lu/category/culture/52478-4th-century-roman-gold-coins-discovered-in-northern-luxembourg

 

Had the same just recently, 5min from the town I live in. If I only knew...😎

That's very interesting! It looks like this is in Clervaux. My great-grandmother was born in Clervaux in 1889. Her family had lived there for some time (the farthest I have it traced is to a Jean Lugen born 1787 most likely in Clervaux). My great-grandfather was from not far away - Goesdorf - though the two didn't meet until they were in the US.

We visited it a few years ago. If I recall, this photo was taken there.

[Mucius Scaevola]

5 minutes ago, kirispupis said:

That's very interesting! It looks like this is in Clervaux. My great-grandmother was born in Clervaux in 1889. Her family had lived there for some time (the farthest I have it traced is to a Jean Lugen born 1787 most likely in Clervaux). My great-grandfather was from not far away - Goesdorf - though the two didn't meet until they were in the US.

We visited it a few years ago. If I recall, this photo was taken there.

It basically says „Holzthum“ in the article😉 But I live in Clervaux😉

 

Yes, the picture is from Clervaux and shows a music school on the left and out castle on the right. The castle was defended by an american tank during the fights here against the germans. The tank, which is usually on display, is gone for restauration and I how it will not take 10 years, as I start to miss it😉

 

but a nice story from your family, thanks for sharing! So both of them were luxembourgish?

[kirispupis]

7 minutes ago, Mucius Scaevola said:

Yes, the picture is from Clervaux and shows a music school on the left and out castle on the right. The castle was defended by an american tank during the fights here against the germans. The tank, which is usually on display, is gone for restauration and I how it will not take 10 years, as I start to miss it😉

but a nice story from your family, thanks for sharing! So both of them were luxembourgish?

That's a bit of a bummer about the tank. I remember seeing it and admired the story that it was left by the Americans and had been there ever since.

Both of my mother's father's parents were born in Luxembourg and (from online records I looked up) their families lived there for generations. My grandfather, whose Luxembourg stamp collection I admired as a kid, spoke Luxembourgish as his first language, though since he was born in the US he never had an accent in English. It is through them that I have Luxembourgish citizenship today. When I travel to Europe I use that passport.

It's possible that at some point I may be the first in my family to move back to Luxembourg. I really like it there. My wife wants to move to France or Italy instead, but the wealth-taxes in those countries make that impractical (and Italy may be a bureaucratic nightmare with my coin collection). The main drawback is the real estate costs - which are much higher than France or Italy.

[Mucius Scaevola]

We‘re quite thankful when it comes to the americans. Well..at least to those from the past 😉 they fought bravely and made the population around here feel safe. You might want to check this story: https://www.americanstnick.com 

Every year we celebrate it and remember.

That‘s a great story! I know that there were even villages built only by luxembourgish people, after they came to America. 
You should definitely have it on your list for moving, it‘s a nice country with a lot of opportunities, even though life is not cheap here. Italy is super nice too, as is Spain or Portugal. I can‘t say that I like France, honestly. It‘s one of my least favorite countries, even though I enjoy some parts. But I could never live there.

[DonnaML]

On 12/5/2024 at 1:53 PM, Mucius Scaevola said:

We‘re quite thankful when it comes to the americans. Well..at least to those from the past 😉 they fought bravely and made the population around here feel safe. You might want to check this story: https://www.americanstnick.com 

Every year we celebrate it and remember.

That‘s a great story! I know that there were even villages built only by luxembourgish people, after they came to America. 
You should definitely have it on your list for moving, it‘s a nice country with a lot of opportunities, even though life is not cheap here. Italy is super nice too, as is Spain or Portugal. I can‘t say that I like France, honestly. It‘s one of my least favorite countries, even though I enjoy some parts. But I could never live there.

Would Luxembourg let @kirispupis bring his coin collection? And sell it later on?