Posted on 10/13/2022 6:15:06 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Three metal detector fans have discovered a Roman hoard worth tens of thousands of pounds while spending the weekend camping in south-west England.
The group were staying in a field near the ancient village of Pewsey, in Wiltshire, when they found the treasure trove a mere six paces from where they had pitched their tent.
Robert Abbott, 53, switched on his device after breakfast one morning and very quickly found something.
At first the computer shop owner from Essex, near London, uncovered only discarded metal tent pegs. But he dug a little deeper and hidden below was a valuable silver Roman coin called a siliqua. It is thought to be about 1,600 years old.
His friends David Allen, 59, a carpenter, and Mick Rae, 63, who works in the dairy industry, sprang into action dug up dozens more of the coins.
By the end of the weekend, they had found 161 piece of silver, including siliqua and miliarense coins dating from 340 to 402 AD.
They stored the loot in their camping washing-up bowl...
The 142 coins are believed to have been buried during the last years of the Roman Empire by people trying to protect their valuables from Saxon raids.
They will go under the hammer at Noonans auction house in Mayfair, London, on May 17, having been discovered in September 2020...
The hoard is expected to sell for between £30,000 ($37,700) and £40,000...
The friends will keep some of their find coins they found and the British Museum, which has studied the coins, will add two of them to its collection.
In recent years, metal detector enthusiasts have made major discoveries in Thetford and Hoxne, in the southern English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, respectively./blockquote>
(Excerpt) Read more at thenationalnews.com ...
Yeah, and whomever lost it is probably going to post a claim here on FR in 3,2,1... ;^)
/rimshot!
My pleasure.
My chances of a Roman soldier ancestor gets better ...
Lots of my English ancestors lived in Wiltshire ...
(For some reason I love Italy I feel ‘at home’ there)
:)
“Wait a minute. When Sherman was making his swing up to the Carolinas some Confederates around Athens might have been bent on hiding their gold in a hole. Get yourself a metal detector and look around the foot of some suspicious looking tree lines. But I’m one to talk since I’m right near the Kennesaw Mountain Battlefield.”
_____
We have read the stories and there are some pretty solid resources that indicate there is some Confederate gold buried around this area somewhere. Unfortunately, as far as we can tell, they did not deposit their gold onto our property. Although we have found a couple of very old horse shoes and some old nails, our metal detector has found nothing else of interest.
Thank you. But, I need more of a “you are here >”, the “gold is there <”, and “X marks the spot” types of maps.
Someone found a Roman coin on a beach in Maine a number of years ago.
Eugenius (392-394), Siliqua, Lugdunum. AR (g 1,68; mm 15; h 12). D N EVGENI VS P F AVG, Pearl-diademed, draped and cuirassed bust r.; Rv. VRBS ROMA, Roma seated l. on cuirass, holding Victory on globe in r. hand and inverted spear in l.; LVGPS. RIC 46
Thank you. I note from Wiki the following of interest:
Roma was probably favoured by Rome’s high-status Imperial representatives abroad, rather than the Roman populace at large. She was depicted on silver cups, arches, and sculptures, including the base of the column of Antoninus Pius. She survived into the Christian period as a personification of the Roman state. Her depiction seated with a shield and spear later influenced that of Britannia, personification of Britain.
Thanks Godebert!
:^)
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