![]() ![]() In addition to the newfound gold coins, over the years metal detectorists have discovered a treasure trove of Roman possessions in the region, including 100 copper alloy coins, two denarii (Roman silver coins), brooches and more. The distrust must have been great, which could indicate many forgeries in circulation." "This made it possible to check whether the coin was really a gold coin and not a gilded bronze coin, for example. " even on the portrait of Augustus," Pilekić said. "If they had been churned around in the soil a lot, I would expect for them to be more scuffed up, but these are not." Pilekić added that cutting "knicks" into the faces of gold coins was common practice in the Roman Empire, where forgeries were abundant. Otherwise, "they're high quality, 20-karat gold," Marsden said. "They are depicted as the chosen successors of Augustus on the coins, which is indicated by the inscription PRINC(ipes) IVVENT(utes): 'the first among the young.'"Įach of the coins also features a small indentation at the top, likely indicating that someone tested the coins for their purity, perhaps after they had been minted. "In the second half of Augustus' reign, when his position was consolidated, the types with dynastic reference increased as an indication of his succession, as is the case here with the extensive coinage for his grandsons, Gaius and Lucius Caesar," Marjanko Pilekić, a numismatist and research assistant at the Coin Cabinet of the Schloss Friedenstein Gotha Foundation in Germany, who wasn't involved with the new findings, told Live Science. (However, both grandsons died before they could don the purple and become emperor.) The other also featured Augustus in profile on one side, but with Gaius on horseback on the reverse. In an article written by Marsden and published in a recent issue of The Searcher, a metal detectorist publication, he described there being two types of gold coins in the stash: one type was marked with the portrait of Augustus Caesar, the first emperor of Rome, with Gaius and Lucius, his grandsons and heirs to the throne, on the back of the coin. However, another ancient Roman historian, Cassius Dio, reported that Boudica died of illness. The defeat led the queen to kill herself, according to the ancient Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus. However, despite their initial success, the queen's army was no match for the Romans, who ultimately won the fight in what is known as the Battle of Watling Street. During the Roman invasion, the tribe's leader, Queen Boudica, led a revolt against Roman forces, attempting to drive them off their land in A.D. ![]() The farmland where the coins were found sits on land once occupied by the Iceni, a tribe of British Celts. The fronts and backs of six of the 11 gold coins from the Roman Empire found in the English countryside. Gold was often used as trade, so it's possible that a local tribe could've gotten ahold of the coins and perhaps planned to use them for other things, such as melting them down to make jewelry." ![]() "It's possible that they could've been part of some type of offering to the gods, but more likely someone buried them with the intention of recovering them later. "It's apparent that went into the ground before the invasion," Marsden told Live Science. Which raises the question: How did the coins end up in a field years before the arrival of Roman forces? While Marsden said that there's no way of knowing for sure, he thinks there could be a couple of logical explanations for the stockpile of riches. ![]() 43 after an invasion launched by Rome's fourth emperor, Claudius. Interestingly, all of the coins were minted before the Roman conquest, when Britain became occupied by Roman forces starting in A.D. Marsden dated the "exceptional" bounty of gold coins to sometime between the first century B.C. ![]()
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