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Man Finds Roman Gold Coin Hoard Worth £100,000 With Metal Detector
An anonymous reader writes "A novice metal detector has found one of the largest roman gold coin hoards ever unearthed in the UK. From the article: 'National newspapers reported on Wednesday that the man, from Berkhamsted, had been sold a beginner’s metal detector from the town’s High Street-based Hidden History for £135. He is reported to have gone back with 40 of the “solidi” coins, dating to the last days of Roman rule in Britain, and asked: “What do I do with this?”'"
TFA is way out. The was a more valuable Roman find of Roman Torcs 3 miles to the west of Stirling in Scotland which netted around £4m which he had a share of £500k
What's interesting is that the Romans didn't last long in Scotland but there are still visible signs of our italian pals from 2000 years ago, such as the Fendoch fort in the Sma Glen north of Crieff and the fort at Braco some 5 miles south of Crieff.
We found some tunic broaches with a metal detector in my parents field a few miles away. Still looking for the pot of Roman gold. There are legends that Fendoch had a large stash of gold but there just legends and no one has ever found them plus metal detecting is illegal on recognised Roman forts which is a bit of a set back!
in Italy, if you find something on your own land, the owner of archaeological stuff is Italy, moreover the country can temporarily occupy the piece of land interested and the owner is entitled to indemnification.
This is why in Italy people does not find historical stuff on the owned lands...
am I the only one smells a rat here? Gold roman coins are worth a lot more than gold alone, therefore a tidy profit is to be made by printing you are own fake roman coins and then claiming to have dug them up.
I think in Italy you've got a much better chance of finding a roman coin in the soil than in the UK. :)
Regarding the owner, can you get back payment for rent from the government? They kept their property stored on your land for 2000 years.
Here in China they know where the Tomb of Qin Shi Huang is located, but they won't be actually excavating the site until such a time as they can figure out how to do so without destroying everything in there. Assuming that it's properly preserved.
It's the responsible thing to do. Once something is damaged or destroyed, that's it. You can sometimes repair it, but it's never the same as if it weren't damaged or destroyed in the first place.
As much as I'd love to see the tomb opened, it's more important that it not be destroyed before the technology is there to open it safely. There's been way too many archeological sites damaged over the years by people that didn't know or didn't care about how to do it correctly.
Actually, Romans had a "light" version of it, mostly in the form of money lending activities. Apart from loans, they were deposits, checks and currency exchange.
The early bankers, were already looked upon with contempt...We can now see why, by looking at what can happen when they are given too much power....
The same principle holds in Egypt: if you discover anything interesting while digging, you have to report it to the Department of Antiquities. They may take over the site and do a dig, or whatever they see fit.
This is why I know people, from Alexandria, who found Roman era amphorae while digging the foundation of their apartment building just take them home and never tell the authorities.
I myself have seen Roman earthenware come out on a government owned building when digging for a data center power cable. The managers just said keep quiet, otherwise it will delay our own project.
The stuff is not even sold or goes on the black market, it sits in storage at someone's balcony or dumped as rubbish.
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They did have an alternative though. They used oil. Oil binds to grease and dirt. It doesn't wash off like soap does because it doesn't bind with water but it can be scraped off with a strigil. No idea how effective this actually would be. Would be interesting to put this to the test.
The Anglo-Saxon language was a dialect of West Germanic that developed in southern Denmark and northeastern Germany (the Angle) in the first centuries AD and was already spoken by the Angles, Saxons and Jutes when they invaded Britain, and in fact those early dialects the three groups brought over were the source of several English dialects found in England and southern Scotland even 1,500 years later.
Just to be totally pedantic :)
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