A hoard of Roman and Pictish silver has been unearthed by archaeologists working in a field in Aberdeenshire.
Posted on 12/07/2014 8:21:58 PM PST by SunkenCiv
A hoard of Roman and Pictish silver has been unearthed by archaeologists working in a field in Aberdeenshire.
The find, which contains more than 100 pieces including coins and jewellery, has been hailed as the most northern of its kind in Europe.
The discovery was made earlier this year by archaeologists from National Museums Scotland and the University of Aberdeen's Northern Picts project at an undisclosed location.
It will now become the subject of a programme of research involving detailed analysis and cataloguing through the Glenmorangie Research Project - a three-year sponsorship of National Museums Scotland to support the study of Early Medieval Scotland.
Dr Martin Goldberg, senior curator of early historic collections, said: "It is a hugely important discovery being Europe's most northerly Late Roman hacksilver hoard, and also containing otherwise unique Pictish silver...
Dr Gordon Noble, senior lecturer at the department of archaeology at the University of Aberdeen, led the fieldwork as part of the Northern Picts project.
He said: "This exciting new find is part of a broader phenomenon of hacksilver hoards which stretch across Europe from the fourth to sixth centuries AD, when the Western Roman Empire was in decline.
"Silver objects were chopped up into bullion and then used and exchanged as payment, bribes, tribute and reward. People buried their wealth to keep it safe, but many did not return to recover their hoard.
"The new finds include late Roman coins, pieces of late Roman silver vessels, bracelet and brooch fragments and other objects that would have been highly prized objects in their day.
"Our work in north-east Scotland is increasingly showing that Pictish communities in this area were part of powerful kingdoms in the early medieval period."
(Excerpt) Read more at heraldscotland.com ...
A hoard of Roman and Pictish silver has been unearthed by archaeologists working in a field in Aberdeenshire.
The type of find that drives me wild.
I would like to see statistics, but it seems almost all Roman coins found are after the 3rd Century. My guess is, Inflation in the Empire was out of control, so there were more coins around, and with chaos and collapse of the Empire, trade and security diminished, so for many folks, the only safe place for wealth was buried in the ground. Are there any studies out there that would confirm or deny this?
The 3rd century was mostly made up of a bunch of independent ‘empires’, each with a series of emperors at war with one another. The economic life of the people of the empire really took off at that time, due to the decentralized gov’ts and their competition with each other, and the need for more money in circulation led to a shift to and big increase in bronze coinage. Those don’t last in the soil like gold and silver does, and tend to be found as a blob of metal and crud that needs lots of care and time to clean up and separate. The practice persisted during the last couple centuries of the Roman Empire, and continued throughout the Byzantine era; the Byzantines got filthy rich due to the location of the capital right on land and sea trade routes, so Byzantine gold coins are (or at least used to be) fairly easy to find and worth more for their meltdown value than for their scarcity.
Thanks for posting this.
I wonder if they found Dick Cheney there too?
My pleasure!
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