"This year the Romans collected all the hoards of gold that were in Britain; and some they hid in the earth, so that no man afterwards might find them, and some they carried away with them into Gaul."
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (the entry for AD 418)
"The islanders in confusion, thinking discretion the better part of valour, sought safety in flight and made their way to the hill country, or buried their valuables, of which many are being dug up in our day."
William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum (XIX.3)
In November 1992, someone who had received a metal detector as a retirement gift set out to recover a lost hammer in a field near Hoxne—but instead discovered the richest hoard of treasure from Roman Britain ever found. Dutifully reported to the Suffolk County Council, it was excavated the next day by the Suffolk Archaeological Unit and transported to the British Museum, where the plot of earth could be carefully separated and the items conserved and cataloged. Because archaeologists had been involved in the discovery virtually from the beginning, it was possible to preserve items (such as fragments of woven textile and tiny fragments of silver sheet) that otherwise might have been lost.
In September 1993, the Hoxne Treasure was declared treasure trove—that is, objects of gold or silver that had been hidden with the intention of recovery but for which the original owner could not be found. Such a discovery is to be reported to the landowner—and the local coroner, who holds an inquest to determine if it qualifies as lost treasure. If so, the find reverts to the Crown and offered to a museum at full market value. This amount then is passed on to the finder (who split it with the land owner) as a reward—in this case, £1.75 million.
The Hoxne Treasure consists primarily of coins, and other objects of gold and silver. They all had been buried in a single wooden chest, only the iron fittings of which survive. Inside were silver locks from smaller caskets and traces of the textile and hay in which some of the objects had been wrapped.
There are 14,780 coins: 565 gold, 14,191 silver, and 24 bronze. The gold coins all are solidi, most were struck between AD 394 and AD 405, when Honorius ruled the western empire and his brother Arcadius, the eastern. They come from thirteen different mints and represent eight different emperors. None of the gold coins are more than fifty years old (having been reintroduced by Constantine the Great in about AD 312) and so are in excellent condition.
The great bulk of the coins, however, are silver siliquae and were minted between AD 358 and AD 408. They represent fifteen different emperors and come from thirteen different mints throughout the empire (curiously, hoards of siliquae from this time have been found only in Britannia and Dacia). Some of the denominations are quite uncommon, and five have not been represented before. Two siliquae of the usurper Constantine III (AD 407–411) can be dated to when he first came to power. Their burial had to occur sometime afterward, likely when Rome abandoned Britain in AD 410. Although no new coins entered the province after Constantine, it is not certain how long existing ones continued to be used. But it is unlikely to have been for more than thirty years, and a probable date of burial is conjectured to be no later than AD 450.
At least eighty percent of the siliquae, which are about the size of a nickel (but thinner), have been clipped around the edges, a phenomenon apparently unique to Britain and likely because of the breakdown of Roman authority there. Sometime, as much as half the coin was removed, although the portrait of the emperor never was defaced. It may have been that the coins were clipped to allow those already in the province to remain in circulation longer and still provide the precious metal necessary for forgeries.
Aside from the coins, there were two hundred pieces of gold jewelry and silver tableware. The twenty-nine pieces of jewelry all are of very pure gold (more than 22 carat) and include rings, the stones of which had been removed before burial, and necklaces, which would have been worn with pendants that also have been removed. One of the rarest pieces of jewelry is a small gold chain that was worn across the body and joined at the front and back by decorative brooches.
Nineteen bracelets also were found, all designed to be slipped over the hand. They include two sets of four matching pieces, a matching pair, as well as a large armlet that would have been worn on the upper arm. Some have figures of animals and huntsmen in low relief, others are delicately pierced in geometric patterns or ribbed like basket weave.
The silver pieces include seventy-eight spoons, twenty ladles (two sets of ten, one incorporating the Christian chi-rho monogram), and a number of smaller objects, including a tigress. The spoons are of two primary types: cochlearia, which have a bowl larger than a teaspoon and a long, pointed handle and ligulae, which are the size of a tablespoon but with a short coiled handle in the shape of a curved swan's neck. Some are inscribed with the name of their owner, Aurelius Ursicinus; others have Christian symbolism. There also are four piperatoria (pepper pots), one in the form of a bust with a disk inside which could be rotated to sprinkle the pepper.
A remarkable treasure, happily recovered by professional archaeologists, and now on display in the British Museum.
References: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (1823/1912) translated by James Ingram and J. A. Giles; William of Malmesbury: Gesta Regum Anglorum: The History of the English Kings (Vol. I) (1998) translated by R. A. B. Mynors, R. M. Thomson, and M. Winterbottom; The Hoxne Treasure: An Illustrated Introduction (1993) by Roger Bland and Catherine Johns; The Hoxne Late Roman Treasure (1994) by Catherine Johns and Roger Bland, Britannia, 25, 165-173. The image (top) is taken from the British Museum, which shows the hoard of coins to better advantage.
