http://www.stampandcoin.co.uk APRIL 2016 131- The earliest hoards date from 4000-2000 BC
containing valuables such as axe heads,
flint knives and boar bone blades. - A skeleton of a dog found close to the
Hallaton Hoard was possibly sacrificed to
guard the treasure. - The Hoxan Hoard was found in 1992 by
a farmer hunting for his lost hammer head.
It’s valued at £3.1 million. - Modern hoards include a jar of US dollars,
hidden during the Second World War and
found in 2007 in a Hackney garden.
Did you know?
COIN HOARDS FOUND IN THE UK
Left page,
clockwise from
top: Silver coins
from the Beau Street
hoard, 3rd century
AD; silver denarius
of the usurper
emperor Carausius
(AD 286-293) from
the Frome hoard; the
Westerham hoard,
a hoard of gold Iron
Age coins found
inside a hollow flint
in 1927This page,
from top:
British Museum
conservator Kathleen
Magill placing the lid
of the Frome hoard
onto the Frome hoard
pot; Two ceramic pots
of silver Roman coins
found near Selby in
Yorkshire; A Roman
ceramic money box,
silver coins and
spoon found by a boy
digging in his back
garden in Muswell
Hill in 1928enormous Frome Hoard pot, which once
held 52,503 Roman coins. This extremely
fragile pot was lowered into the ground,
then filled with coins. Lifting it would
have caused it to collapse under its own
weight, raising the possibility that it was
never actually intended to be retrieved.
The idea that British Celts continued the
practice of ‘sacrificing’ valuables at their
holy sites long after the Roman conquest
is certainly appealing, although more
work on this theory is still to be done.Curious coins
There’s no such thing as a ‘typical’
hoard, but many finds follow a general
pattern. First of all, the coins are
usually hidden inside something. That
something could be a box, pouch, clay
amphora or even an old brass kettle.
The gold coins in the Water Newton
Hoard were placed in a leather bag,
inside a bronze bowl, inside a ceramic
vessel, effectively a Russian Doll
designed to both protect and disguise
their contents. The Muswell Hill Hoard
is especially interesting as it revealed
something that has so far proved to be
unique: a ceramic money box,
with a slit on top through which
coins could be deposited.
While these bags, boxes and urns can
provide archaeologists with fascinating
insights, historically speaking, the coins
themselves are far more valuable. The
large number of coins found dating from
the 3rd century AD, for instance, tells
the story of the economic turmoil thatp130 British Museum Hoards.indd 131 01/03/2016 12:35