Roman imperial silver coin hoard found in Switzerland

From the article:

"The coins date from the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D., mostly the latter. The oldest denarius in the hoard was minted under the reign of the Emperor Nero, the youngest in Rome under Commodus in 181/182 A.D. The dates of the most recent coins suggest the hoard was cached at the end of the second century."

http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/57164

 

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I love that stuff like this is still being unearthed. Makes you wonder what is still out there.

 

And a nice Otho right on top. Very cool!

 

I could be way off, but I think I see three Othos in the mix.

 

I like that it was found away from the usual archaeology sites like upcoming construction areas or known areas of interest, and instead it was just out randomly in the woods, not near anything that would mark it as a place to even take a look at. Makes you wonder how the owner kept the site in mind (other than it being valuable, I mean).

 

I feel like it was me when I was a little kid and buried "treasures"...I totally will remember the exact location. A day later, totally forgot and it is lost forever. Maybe in 2,000 years someone will dig up my hotwheels

 

That was me as a kid. I know there's a jar buried behind a house I used to live in. No telling what is in it, but it, too, may have a Matchbox car and other incredibly valuable things in it.

 

Cool find and they are also in excellent condition.

 

Oooh! Several of Faustina I and Antoninus Pius!

 

I'd love to have a dig through that lot!

 

The write-up is better than many we see but still makes a couple interesting comments. There are no 100% silver coins here. All are after the first debasements. The author comments on the oddity of the coins being buried in a wooded area perhaps missing the point that many places have cycled between cleared and wooded in the last 1800 years so we really do not know if these were buried 10 paces north of the old oak tree or in a leather bag in a wooden cupboard in a thatched hut. I do find it interesting that rather few of the coins are worn slick. The inclusion of a high grade Vespasian makes me wonder if the group was deposited over more than one generation rather than being what was pulled from general circulation in the time of Commodus. We can have theories on things like this but proof is not easy.

 

@Numisnewbiest, great article (& really nice blog - The History Blog)! Thanks for posting this!

However, I'm wondering if the accompanying pic is of the actual find or merely a file photo? (The article itself makes no comment/reference to the pic.; only describes the coins found.)

To me, the coins, having been buried for so long in no surviving container, cannot have looked that good right out of the ground. The article was posted 11/25/2019 but makes no mention of the discovery date. My instinct tells me it was a recent find, so probably not enough time to clean them all to the condition of the pictured coins.

Also, that doesn't look (to me) like 293 coins.

JMHO

 

The accompanying article, of course, got it wrong about the denarii of the late First and the Second Century AD being pure silver. From the mid period of the reign of Nero the coins were of about 90% and on downward (except for some early denarii of Domitian which were above the 90% pure mark). Perhaps in comparing them to Third Century coinage the author meant say solid silver as opposed to heavily debased or washed silver.

 

Interesting, a hoard with coins from more than a century until the last coin of Commodus, and the early ones in excellent condition - that must be a coin collector's treasure. Like this one found in Bulgaria, as was noted somewhere else by someone. It takes a coin collector to recognize a fellow!

 

I hadn't even considered that (I was under the influence of the "wow" factor). I think you're right, that can't be this particular hoard.

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EDIT:
Here is the Swiss article from "Archaeologie Baselland", and it states a summer 2019 discovery of the hoard. It also uses the same photos in their article. Maybe the coins have been cleaned by now, and the photographer was just using a small pile for convenience?

https://www.archaeologie.bl.ch/entdecken/fundstelle/107/293-silbermuenzen

 

Perhaps; nevertheless, great find!

 

Great story! Reminds me of the time I dug up a "hoard" of about 100 brass tokens in Maryland in about 1964. Denominations were 3, 5, 10 25, 50 and 100. I estimate their age at Civil war or earlier. I gave them all to a friend before I moved out of the country. Then about 7 months ago some of them were listed on ebay, along with the hand written note I included in the bag, with my name on it. Bidding was quite low and I had a $100 snipe placed by a friend, but @#$%$#! Someone bid higher and nabbed them. I have not seen them since.

 

The date range of the visible coins in the image seems entirely consistent with the description of the date range. Earliest visible coin is Nero, latest visible coin is Commodus. Someone would have had to do their research to find a good fit file photo.

It's a fun exercise to try and identify as many as you can to a ruler. It's surprising how many you can do even from the reverses as many are tied to individual emperors.

 

The archaeologists assume that the owner of the coins lived in a villa rustica nearby and that, when he hid the pieces, there was some landmark (a big rock maybe) next to the site. So he may have seen the spot every day ...

Christian