A nice article with a few pics regarding a large hoard of Roman silver left behind in ancient times. http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/58249
I always love seeing these finds. Here are the photos from the linked article...looks like mostly Antonine-era silver. Would be a lot of fun to get to go through these.
Very interesting! It's neat to see the entirety of the hoard pretty well circulated. Also it's fascinating that the hoard make up seems to be only from the time described (96-211), as I don't see any that appear to predate Nerva. Could those earlier coins not have made it to the area? Could that be a dating for when the area became part of the empire and only received post-Flavian coins from the mint and didn't have much outsider commerce with those earlier coins moving through?
I always wondered if coins from previous emperors were taken out of circulation by the current emperor at that time? or did they just continue to circulate and he only minted new coins in his name and portrait?
When I see a group all the same well worn shape, I have to suspect that someone cherrypicked the better ones. It could be what would happen if Rome pulled the army out of the area and stopped sending new coins into the local economy which continued to use the ones they had locally. How will we know?
