They feature portraits of the emperor and his relatives on the front. Ackermann Inventory of Swiss Coin Findsįinding hidden coins from the late Roman period, which scholars define as roughly 250 to 450 C.E., is not unusual. Earlier this year, a badger in northwest Spain made headlines after digging up a hoard of more than 90 ancient coins, as Jack Guy reported for CNN in January. What’s different about the newly unearthed coins in Switzerland is their specific timeframe. The most recent specimens date to between 332 and 335 C.E.-a period of relative prosperity from which few Roman coin hoards survive. “In troubled times, triggered by civil wars, incursions by neighboring ethnic groups or economic crises, many people buried their valuables in the ground to protect them from unauthorized access,” notes the statement, per Google Translate. These years are characterized more by their political stability and some economic recovery.” “During the time when the pot from Bubendorf was hidden, there are hardly any comparable hoards in the entire Roman Empire. The timing of the coins makes the find “very important,” Reto Marti, head archaeologist at Archäologie Baselland, tells Live Science. “It will give a very detailed insight into the use of money and the circulation of coins in the time of. Constantine the Great.”Īcademics generally agree that people bury coin hoards during times of great stress: for example, during the Black Death or the English Reformation. But discoveries in recent decades have led some scholars to speculate that certain caches also served as ritual offerings, “perhaps the wealth of a farming community. as insurance for a good harvest or good weather,” noted Current Archaeologyin 2010. The newly discovered coins were found on the border of three Roman estates, indicating they may have been buried as a border sanctuary or a sacrifice to the gods, according to the statement. While surveying the coins with a CT scan, the archaeologists spotted a piece of cowhide dividing the cache in two, indicating the money may have belonged to two different people or groups.
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