Few have experienced the thrill of finding buried treasure. One lucky amateur treasure hunter found one of the largest hoards of Roman coins ever found in Britain. It was in Somerset in the southwest of England in April.
The stash of some 52,000 mostly bronze coins dating from the third century AD was buried in a large, well-preserved pot.
Archaeologists are excited about the discovery because they say it sheds new light on the turbulent time, when Roman Britain suffered barbarian invasions, economic crises and civil wars.
Dave Crisp, who found the hoard, said he hit the jackpot after his detector gave “a funny signal.”
“I put my hand in, pulled out a bit of clay and there was a little Radial, a little bronze Roman coin. Very, very small, about the size of my fingernail."
Some of the coins are stamped with the image of Marcus Aurelius Carausius a military commander who seized power in the late third century and proclaimed himself emperor of Britain and northern Gaul.
Carausius who ruled from AD 286 to AD 293 was the first emperor to strike coins in Britain.
“This find presents us with an opportunity to put Carausius on the map,” said Roger Bland, Head of Portable Antiquities and Treasure at the British Museum.
“School children across the country have been studying Roman Britain for decades, but are never taught about Carausius — our lost British emperor.”
This find echoes a similar spectacular discovery of Anglo Saxon gold and silver artifacts called the Staffordshire Hoard by an unemployed man. The ultimate find, however, is the Mildenhall Treasure immortalized by Roald Dahl.
