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Message:: [QUOTE="Ocatarinetabellatchitchix, post: 4565795, member: 99554"]Friday, June 12, 1366The village of Tourves (France) was in shock. Around nine o'clock in the morning, children came to play waking up a young shepherd who was grazing his sheep. They suddenly saw silver coins emerging from the ground through a hole at first so small that one could barely pass their fingers through it,  in such a quantity that the inhabitants of the village carried it in their purses, their pockets and even in their aprons.There were so many pieces that it took 20 mules to transport them. An estimation of the weight of this considerable amount of coins is about 5000 pounds. This is probably the oldest discovery of a hoard which we have a written and official record. Many Romans did not know the banknotes, the checkbook, or the deposit banks. A soldier received as salary 1 aureus per month (the equivalent of 25 denarii or 100 sestertius). So if he wanted to put away his savings, the best solution would be to dig a hole in the backyard and hide the money there. Hundreds of thousands of Roman citizens buried their "fortunes" in this way, and many of them died by accident, illness, murder before they could recover their money. Other reasons that could have led to the burial of a treasure are linked to political or military facts (civil wars or invasions) but also, and above all, to economic and monetary factors. An example that we find in the 4th century is that of the heavy Diocletian nummus which is struggling to find its place in the congested monetary circuits of the old Antoninianus and which is massively withdrawn from circulation. The nummus reductions made between 307-313 do nothing to help. We naturally preferred to put aside the old nummi rather than to exchange them for the new ones, lighter but with the same face value. Thus, each weighting reduction corresponds to a wave of hoarding. There were also hoards of votive offerings, without the intention of recovery or use, in a sacred place for religious purposes. They were generally made in order to gain favor with supernatural forces. <img src="https://www.rts.ch/2016/04/29/16/01/7687052.image?w=1500&h=844" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" />Tomares hoard Even the "New Testament", written during the first century AD, have many references to the custom of burying coins:Matt.25:18 : "But he who received the one talent went away, and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money".Matt.13:44 : "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field".2 Cor. 4:7 : "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels". So just to have fun and also dream a bit, let's overview a few hoards of Roman coins discovered "lately":The Misurata hoardThe treasure of Misurata (Libya) was discovered in 1981 and contained some 110,000 nummi distributed in a dozen ceramics amphora according on their weight. So far, 83,000 coins have been listed.The coins in the hoard are dated between 294-333 AD. One hypothesis is that the hoard belonged to the State, that it was buried in an area of the cursus publicus (on the move) and that all of the people who knew about its existence died suddenly. On the other camp, there is the idea that the hoard belonged to a banker, that only part of it has been recovered, that it was supposed to be immobilised for a long period of time and that its sole owner died suddenly. Since the country was quite closed during Gaddafi's reign, it took years for specialists to be able to analyse the hoard. At present it is kept at the Archaeological Museum of Leptis Magna in Libya. [ATTACH=full]1130586[/ATTACH] Details of the hoard by period of time[ATTACH=full]1130587[/ATTACH] The l'Isle-Jourdain hoardIn 2011, three amphorae containing thousands of 1700-year-old bronze coins were discovered during excavations in a field in L'Isle-Jourdain (France). The Gers had already had its treasure 26 years ago (1985) in Eauze. These coins date from the years 290 to 310 and were struck in Rome, London, Lyon, Carthage or Trier (Germany). A few months after the discovery of 250 Roman bronze pieces by two amateurs, an archeology team found in the same place an exceptional deposit of thousands of new old pieces. These amateurs had not come there by chance: they had noted in a publication of the 90s mention of the discovery of some Roman coins and various objects in the same field. [ATTACH=full]1130608[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1130609[/ATTACH] The Tomares hoardOn the morning of 27 April 2016, during maintenance works in a pipeline, workers found out that they were digging through a cluster of large ceramic containers. The discovery comprised a total of 19 amphorae, 10 of which were broken as a consequence of the machine work. The other 9 were complete and remained sealed. A cursory examination of some of the pieces has resulted in the identification of folles struck by Diocletian, Maximian and Maxentius and some from the early years of Constantine’s reign, up to the year 313 AD. The average weight of one amphorae is 75 lbs, so more than 13200 lbs of coins has been unearthed. They were undoubtedly intended to remunerate civil servants or soldiers. <img src="https://incnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/websiteTomaresHoard.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" />                           <img src="http://incnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Tomares_hoard_2-300x171.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> You all know that in too curious, but I'd really like to see YOUR Roman coins from hoards. So it's time to show off ! Tetricus II, Cunetio hoard[ATTACH=full]1130596[/ATTACH] Victorinus, St-Peter Hoard[ATTACH=full]1130598[/ATTACH] Claudius II, Braithwell Hoard[ATTACH=full]1130603[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]

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