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17-596: The Stanchester Hoard is a hoard of 1,166 Roman coins dating from the fourth to early fifth century found in 2000 at Wilcot , in the Vale of Pewsey , Wiltshire, England. The find was considered important because of the large quantity of unclipped silver coins contained within. It was also the latest dated example of Roman coins found in Wiltshire. The hoard was discovered in a field on 25 July 2000 by John and David Philpotts, using metal detectors . It had been buried in

34-538: A flagon made from pottery of the Alice Holt type. The hoard was named after the former Stanchester villa , a nearby Roman villa with which the hoard was likely to have been associated, along with the Wansdyke earthwork . Excavations of the villa in 1931 and 1969 revealed a wall and evidence for a Roman central heating system . Roof and flue tiles and pottery shards were dated by associated coins, which were from

51-694: A commander-in-chief in Britain was ever reappointed. The coins came from a number of mints across the Roman Empire, at Siscia , Sirmium , Constantinople , Trier , Aquileia , Lyons , Rome, Thessaloniki , Milan and Antioch . In 1865, Roman tesserae , coins, pieces of bronze, shale whorls , pottery and a flint knife were found in an area known as Stanchester in Curry Rivel , Somerset. Other Roman places in England named Stanchester include

68-523: A temple or church become the property of that institution, and may be used to its benefit. Fishpool Hoard In 1966 the Fishpool Hoard of 1,237 15th century gold coins, four rings and four other pieces of jewellery, and two lengths of gold chain was discovered by workmen on a building site near present-day Cambourne Gardens, in Ravenshead , Nottinghamshire , England, an area that

85-648: Is a collection of personal objects buried for safety in times of unrest. A hoard of loot is a buried collection of spoils from raiding and is more in keeping with the popular idea of " buried treasure ". Votive hoards are different from the above in that they are often taken to represent permanent abandonment, in the form of purposeful deposition of items, either all at once or over time for ritual purposes, without intent to recover them . Furthermore, votive hoards need not be "manufactured" goods, but can include organic amulets and animal remains. Votive hoards are often distinguished from more functional deposits by

102-463: The 2nd to the 4th centuries. The Wiltshire Museum in Devizes acquired the hoard for £50,000 following a coroner's inquest which declared it treasure trove . The Stanchester Hoard contains three gold solidi , 33 silver miliarenses —many described as in "mint condition", 1129 silver siliquae and one copper-alloy nummus , as well as a fragment of a bronze ring. The earliest coin was struck in

119-602: The British Museum, London , was listed in 2003 among Our Top Ten Treasures , a special episode of BBC Television series Meet the Ancestors that profiled the ten most important treasures ever unearthed in Britain as voted by a panel of experts from the British Museum. The British Museum assesses the face value of the hoard when deposited, about £400, would be equivalent to around £300,000 today. The makeup of

136-498: The antiquities market, it often happens that miscellaneous objects varying in date and style have become attached to the original group. Such "dealer's hoards" can be highly misleading, but better understanding of archaeology amongst collectors, museums and the general public is gradually making them less common and more easily identified. Hoards may be of precious metals , coinage , tools or less commonly, pottery or glass vessels. There are various classifications depending on

153-438: The coinage, as well as dating the hoard, showed that the light coinage of 1412 did not eliminate earlier gold coins. Among the coins were detected some nearly contemporary gold-plated counterfeit coins from the reign of Henry VI (1422–61). The jewellery is all in gold, with several items set with gems or using enamel . Apart from the four rings there are three pendants and a heart-shaped brooch, which like some other items

170-425: The hoard, and these surviving hoards might then be uncovered much later by metal detector hobbyists, members of the public, and archaeologists . Hoards provide a useful method of providing dates for artifacts through association as they can usually be assumed to be contemporary (or at least assembled during a decade or two), and therefore used in creating chronologies. Hoards can also be considered an indicator of

187-422: The nature of the goods themselves (from animal bones to diminutive artifacts), the places buried (being often associated with watery places, burial mounds and boundaries), and the treatment of the deposit (careful or haphazard placement and whether ritually destroyed/broken). Valuables dedicated to the use of a deity (and thus classifiable as "votive") were not always permanently abandoned. Valuable objects given to

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204-439: The nature of the hoard: A founder's hoard contains broken or unfit metal objects, ingots , casting waste, and often complete objects, in a finished state. These were probably buried with the intention to be recovered at a later time. A merchant's hoard is a collection of various functional items which, it is conjectured, were buried by a traveling merchant for safety, with the intention of later retrieval. A personal hoard

221-436: The reign of Constantine I starting in 307; the latest coin was struck in 406 during the joint reign of Arcadius and Honorius . The silver coins were not clipped, suggesting that they had never been circulated. Within a year of the latest minting, Constantine III , declared emperor by his troops, crossed to Gaul with an army and was defeated by Honorius; it is unclear how many Roman troops remained or ever returned, or whether

238-863: The relative degree of unrest in ancient societies. Thus conditions in 5th and 6th century Britain spurred the burial of hoards, of which the most famous are the Hoxne Hoard , Suffolk; the Mildenhall Treasure , the Fishpool Hoard , Nottinghamshire, the Water Newton hoard, Cambridgeshire, and the Cuerdale Hoard , Lancashire, all preserved in the British Museum . Prudence Harper of the Metropolitan Museum of Art voiced some practical reservations about hoards at

255-555: The site of another villa in Pitchford , Shropshire. Hoard A hoard or "wealth deposit" is an archaeological term for a collection of valuable objects or artifacts , sometimes purposely buried in the ground, in which case it is sometimes also known as a cache . This would usually be with the intention of later recovery by the hoarder; hoarders sometimes died or were unable to return for other reasons (forgetfulness or physical displacement from its location) before retrieving

272-723: The time of the Soviet exhibition of Scythian gold in New York City in 1975. Writing of the so-called "Maikop treasure" (acquired from three separate sources by three museums early in the twentieth century, the Berliner Museen , the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology , and the Metropolitan Museum, New York), Harper warned: By the time "hoards" or "treasures" reach museums from

289-697: Was then known as "Fishpool". It is the largest hoard of medieval coins ever found in Britain. To judge from the dates of the coins , the hoard was probably buried in haste at some time between winter 1463 and summer 1464, perhaps by someone fleeing south after the Battle of Hexham in May 1464, in the first stages of England's civil war between aristocratic factions, the War of the Roses . The Fishpool Hoard, on display in Room 40 in

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