Roger Bland | Portable Antiquities Scheme blogs

Hoard declared Treasure by coroner

On 22 July, the hoard was declared to be Treasure at a coroner’s inquest in Frome. It will now be valued by the Treasure Valuation Committee at their meeting in October and the Committee has commissioned valuations from two of the leading trade experts in Roman coins.

A selection of coins from the hoard was put on show in Frome library on the 22nd and over 2,000 people came to see the coins and hear Sam Moorhead, Roger Bland, Anna Booth and Katie Hinds talk about them.

Roger says:

We were all amazed and greatly encouraged at the huge interest shown by the people of Frome in this hoard and hope to work with Somerset County Council Heritage Service on arranging more events like this in the county. At the moment we are only at the start of the project to study the hoard. Although all the coins have been washed and identified by emperor, many thousands are unidentified and it will be a year’s work for a conservator to clean all the coins. At present we trying to raise the funding for this. Once the valuation of the hoard has been agreed, Somerset County Council Heritage Service will need to raise the funding to acquire the hoard for Somerset. British Museum Press are publishing a small book on the hoard in order to help the fundraising campaign.

Sam said:

‘It is wonderful that a new discovery can generate so much interest. It shows that the public have a thirst to see and hear about major new finds. Furthermore, having over 2,000 people (including two groups of school children) come in person to look at the coins will have an enormous impact on the local community and its engagement with history. There is no doubt that Britain’s forgotten emperor, Carausius, is now beginning to enter the psyche of people who have been following the media reports on the hoard. The Portable Antiquities Scheme might have a major responsibility to record new finds by the public, but it also plays a crucial role in the wider dissemination of knowledge about the past. Has any coin hoard ever generated this much interest in the past? I don’t think so.’

Farewell hoard…

26.04.10

Just a quick entry to say that we said goodbye to the hoard today.

Roger Bland, Head of the Portable Antquities Scheme, and Sam Moorhead, our Roman Coins Advisor, drove down in Sam’s car to pick it up. Roger rang first thing to say that they hoped to come down straight away, leaving us feeling slightly unprepared for how quickly it was going to leave us.

Anna shows coins to Sam and Roger © Somerset County Council

Before they arrived I had the opportunity to package it in slightly smaller boxes (although it still took up a huge amount of space!) and to show some of the bags of coins to colleagues. The Museum of Somerset very much hopes to acquire the hoard in due course, but it will undoubtedly still be some time until we see it in its entirety again here, so it was good to give everyone a chance to have a quick look until it disappears again.

We helped Sam and Roger load it into the car and they headed back after a quick cup of tea, keen to get back to London before their destination, the British Museum, closed. They apparently made it in time and Sam sent me a message saying that he only realised the sheer size of what they were dealing with when he saw how low his car was sitting as it stood on the museum forecourt!

Coins being loaded © Somerset County Council

It was really sad to see it go, but the story isn’t over yet as we have yet to announce the discovery to the public. However, it has been decided that the coins will be washed by a conservator and counted before we do this, to give us more of a story to tell – who knows, it might be the biggest hoard from this country ever!!!

Anna – Day one

22.04.10

I was up bright and early to drive to the site this morning. We were off to a good start already – the sun was shining – meaning no worries about digging holes in the rain!

When I finally reached the field, Dave the finder introduced himself and his grandson Aaron, before describing his finds to me while we waited for Katie Hinds (the Wiltshire FLO) and Alan Graham (an independent archaeologist employed to excavate whatever we found) to arrive. He showed me the dispersed hoard of fourth century siliquae that he had found at the entrance to the field and then the pieces of pottery and loose coins that he had taken from the site of other potential hoard some distance away. The bits of pottery were odd because they seemed to be from the base of a vessel. What was going on? Were they from a pot that had been buried upside down? Or maybe there was a smaller pot upturned in the mouth of a lager one? When everyone was there we walked over to the site further inside the field to investigate further.

Dave began by revealing the carefully disguised (and amazingly small) hole that he had initially dug. We couldn’t help commending him once again for his restraint. It must have been so difficult to resist digging a deeper hole to investigate further! Luckily Alan immediately formulated a plan… he would dig a 1.5m trench around Dave’s original hole, lifting off the topsoil to begin with and take things from there depending on what we found.

The turf and some of the topsoil had been removed and we stool around the trench gawping at something sticking out in the middle. Katie and I had immediately recognised it as a Roman Black Burnished Ware dish turned upside down, as this is a type of pottery that we often record. Its centre was cracked and had caved in – just inside a few tantalising bronze coins could be spotted. In a rough circle around the dish was the outline of the top of a small pit, dug by whoever buried it originally.

Was that it? Dave would still have done the right thing asking for us to excavate the site to be on the safe side, but it would have been such as shame if this was all that had turned up as a result. However, Alan began to inspect the dish more closely and called us to have a look. It appeared that the dish was sitting within something wider – the rim of a much bigger vessel.

Alan got back to work immediately, following the line of the original pit, whilst the rest of us stood around speculating about what we might be dealing with (and wishing we could help more, if only the trench wasn’t so small…!). Did this mean that we might be dealing with a pot filled with coins, or maybe with coins only on the top? Perhaps the pot had something else inside and the coins had been placed above it as an offering before slipping inside when the top was cracked? The possibilities were endless.

Soon the shoulders of the pot began to emerge and for the first time we had some idea of what we were dealing with. The pot was getting bigger by the second as we dug further. In fact it was even bigger than we had initially guessed, as the neck was fairly narrow. If it was filled with coins then it could potentially be an enormous hoard.

With this thought in my mind I rang Bob Croft, the County Archaeologist, and Stephen Minnitt, the Head of Museums (who had dealt with coin hoards from the county before) to ask for advice, while Katie rang the head of the Portable Antiquities Scheme, Roger Bland, and our Roman Coins Advisor, Sam Moorhead. Everyone reacted with a mixture of shock and excitement and the views on what we should do were varied. Should we try to block lift the whole thing? A risky and expensive operation. Or should we excavate the coins in the ground?

Bob soon turned up on site after driving over specially and after lots of discussions and advice from Sam, Roger and Steve over the phone, we decided that excavation in situ would be preferable as we needed to get it out asap (to avoid leaving the site at risk). The main benefit of block lifting would have been the opportunity to carefully excavate the hoard in a lab to see if the coins we put in the pot in one go or in phases. Baring this in mind, we decided to half-section the pot and take the coins out in layers, to see if we could still achieve this.

Meanwhile, the landowner, Geoff, had arrived on site and we were able to explain why there was a big hole in the middle of his field! He was extremely interested and more than happy for us to continue with our plans. So with everyone on board we decided to begin this process the following day. Dave and Aaron kindly volunteered to camp out and protect the site overnight. A huge help as it meant we didn’t need to worry about security! And the rest of us went home to get some rest before another early start the next day…

Katie – Day one

What a day! Its 8pm and I’ve just got home. Anna and I met up with Dave and his grandson Aaron, and Alan Graham, the archaeologist Naomi had organised to excavate the hoard. We thought we would have a hoard in a pot by the end of today, but it soon became clear when Alan began clearing the soil from around the top of the pot that what Dave and we had thought was the rim of the pot, was in fact the base of an inverted vessel on top of the pot, and fitted neatly inside the rim. Which means it is one big pot! I made a quick phone call to Wiltshire Heritage Museum this afternoon when it became clear the pot was roughly 50cm in diameter. WHM houses the pot from the biggest coin hoard in the country (54,952 late 3^rd century coins from the Roman town of Cunetio near Marlborough). Dianne, the Fundraising Officer, nipped off with a ruler and measured the Cunetio pot for me – 50cm in diameter!!! My mind is racing with visions of coins. I rang Sam Moorhead from the middle of the field – he sounded in shock and kept saying ‘can you see any Carausian coins?’ (the so-called rebel emperor AD 286-293).

The difficult decision of the day however was how on earth to get these coins out of the ground. If we lifted en bloc, it would be a mammoth task (Sam guessed it would weigh a ton, no joke intended) and very expensive. Plus, as it would then have to be excavated in laboratory conditions, it could take a while before we knew what was in there. The decision was taken, with help from Bob Croft (Somerset County Archaeologist) who had called by and Roger Bland on the phone, that we would take the coins out in layers. Sam was keen to see whether there was any differentiation between the date of the coins at the top to those at the bottom. In other words, had this pot represented some sort of bank over the years. It was clear anyway that the pot could not have been lowered into the pit with the coins inside as it would have been far too heavy.

Another facinating discovery is that the pot was packed around with reeds of some kind. They are not weaved, but they are clearly placed. The pot is cracked and almost intact one small piece appears to be missing. Anna, Dave, Aaron and I spent a good hour hunting through the spoil but to no avail. Dave and Aaron are camping out tonight, right next to the pit. Can’t get better security than that!

Update on Scheme conference

This is just an update on our next conference, being held in September. We still have room for people to attend. If you would like to add your name to the list, please contact Michael Lewis (mlewis@britishmuseum.org).

RECORDING THE PAST: HOW DIFFERENT EUROPEAN COUNTRIES DEAL WITH PORTABLE ANTIQUITIES

MONDAY 7 SEPTEMBER 2009
BP LECTURE THEATRE, BRITISH MUSEUM

PROGRAMME

This conference aims to gain a wider understanding of how different European countries deal with portable antiquities (archaeological small finds) found by members of the public and promote best practice amongst finders. The key questions that speakers will address are: whether there is a legal requirement for finders of portable antiquities to report archaeological objects and whether the state claims ownership of them; whether it is permissible to search for such finds with a metal-detector or by other means; how many people (in that country) are known to search for archaeological objects (legally or not); how many objects are reported each year; and whether the systems in place (in that country) work as well as they could or whether improvements could be made. It is hoped the conference will help identify the main strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches adopted by countries across Europe, in order to draw conclusions as to how best to preserve an archaeological record of finds found, develop best practice, and find ways to educate the public about the importance of such finds for understanding the past.

09:30 Registration
09:45 Welcome: Neil MacGregor, Director, British Museum
10:00 Dr Roger Bland (British Museum, London), The English and Welsh approach to portable antiquities: a perfect system or fundamentally flawed?
10:30 Dr Alan Saville (National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh), Little and large: portable antiquities and treasure trove in Scotland
11:00 Dr Cormac Bourke (Ulster Museum, Belfast), Found objects: the Northern Ireland experience
11:30 Coffee
12:00 Dr Eamonn P Kelly (National Museum, Dublin), Portable antiquities in the Republic of Ireland
12:30 Dr Johan Nicolay (University of Groningen), Metal detection in the Netherlands: the law and reality
13:00 Lunch (not provided)
14:00 Dr Martin Segschneider (Archäologisches Landesamt, Schleswig Holstein), Methods of cooperation with metal detectorists in Schleswig-Holstein – first results and experiences
14:30 Dr Mogens Bo Henrikson (Odense Museum), Detectors and Danefæ in Denmark
15:00 Dr Andrej Gaspari (Military Museum of Slovenian Armed Forces, Ljubljana), Purchase, compensation or reward? Abolition scheme for the illegally excavated archaeological artefacts between law and practice (experience from the Republic of Slovenia).
15:30 Coffee
16:00 Gábor Lassányi (Aquincum Museum), Metal detecting and the antiquities law in Hungary.
16:30 Prof Aleksander Bursche and Mr Maricn Rudnicki (Instytut Archeologii, Uniwersytet Warszawski), Metal Detecting in Poland – law and reality.
17:00 Discussion
17:30 Close

Bookings: please send a cheque for £15 payable and your contact details to The British Museum to Michael Lewis, Department of Portable Antiquities & Treasure, The British Museum, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DG. Tel: 0207 323 8611.

Doctor’s bequest to St Agnes Museum leads to discovery of unique Roman gold coin found in the parish

When Clare Murton, a volunteer at St Agnes Museum, was sorting through the large amount of material that had been given to the Museum by the family of Dr Whitworth, one of five generations of doctors in general practice in St Agnes, she came upon a piece of paper which had a sealing wax impression of a Roman coin, together with the following account written by Dr Whitworth in 1910:

‘In 1910 Mrs John Tonkin of Carn Golla picked up in a field recently enclosed from the Common, which had just been scuffed or harrowed, a Roman gold coin the size of a half-sovereign, bright and in perfect preservation …’

Clare sent an image of the impression to the British Museum to ask if they could identify the coin and her message reached Roger Bland of the Department of Portable Antiquities & Treasure. He was very excited by it as he recognised it as an impression of a gold coin of the Roman emperor Julian (AD 360-63) which was known to have been found at St Agnes in 1910, although the coin itself had long since been lost and no detailed description of it survived. The coin proved in fact to be a new variety minted at Lyon in France between AD 361 and 363.

St Agnes Roman gold coin and seal impressions

Even more intriguingly, Roger was able to link this discovery with the record of another find of Roman gold coin of Valentinian I, emperor immediately after Julian, between AD 364 and 375, which was recorded as having been found at St Agnes in 1680. It would be a great coincidence for two coins made nearly at the same time to have been lost by accident in the same area and it is more likely that the two coins were buried together and so form a hoard.

Through the skill of the British Museum’s Facsimile Technician, Mike Neilson, it has been possible to make an electrotype copy of the coin and Roger Bland presented that to St Agnes Museum today.

Roger Bland said:

“I am very grateful to St Agnes Museum for showing us this seal impression of a gold coin of Julian and am delighted to be able to present an electrotype replica of the coin to the Museum as part of the work that the British Museum’s partnership with other museums in Britain. The discovery of the seal impression of this coin among the papers of Dr Whitworth makes a fascinating story: not only is this coin a hitherto unpublished variety, but Roman gold coins are very rare finds from Britain: only 9 others are known from Cornwall and fewer than 700 from the whole country, so this is a doubly interesting find.”

PhD Studentship – AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award – Dress Adornment and Identity in Late Iron Age and Roman Britain

Applications are sought for an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award, to be held at the UCL Institute of Archaeology in partnership with the British Museum, from 28th September 2009. The CDA provides funding for 3 years of full-time doctoral study, with enhanced support from the British Museum.

The primary aim of the PhD project is to assess regional variation in dress and personal appearance using the significant new dataset recorded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS), in tandem with excavated material. The focus will lie on Late Iron Age and Roman (50 BC-AD 410) brooches, but other items of personal adornment (bracelets, pins, finger-rings) will also be considered. Patterning, with reference to potential differences in dress and perceived identity on a regional basis will be explored. The social distribution of brooches and other artefact types according to further dimensions of identity (such as status, age and gender) will also be examined. This project has a great deal of potential to contribute to current debates about cultural tradition and transformation in the Roman period. Items associated with personal appearance provide excellent evidence for the shaping of identities in this period, but brooch studies have hitherto focused primarily on typo-chronological issues. By comparing a sample of the PAS brooch data with examples derived from secure archaeological contexts and with other costume items, this project will build upon such work to examine bodily adornment as an important field of social display.

To be eligible for a full award, which covers tuition fees and a maintenance grant (£15,290 per annum in 2009/10), applicants should be normally resident in the UK. Applicants should have a good first degree and have (or be studying for) a postgraduate degree in archaeology or a closely related field. The project will be supervised by Dr. Andrew Gardner, Ms. Sally Worrell and Dr. Roger Bland. In addition to supervision and training at UCL, the successful applicant will receive training in material culture study within the context of the British Museum and the Portable Antiquities Scheme. The AHRC maintenance award will be supplemented by an additional £1000 per year and a further £500 expenses allowance by the British Museum, of which the student will also be a temporary member of staff.

Further particulars of the project can be found at our website http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/ or contact Dr. Andrew Gardner (andrew.gardner@ucl.ac.uk) for further information.

Application forms can be downloaded from http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ admission/graduate-study/application-admission/ or are available from Ms. Lisa Daniel, Graduate Programmes Administrator, Institute of Archaeology, UCL, 31-34 Gordon Square, London, WC1H 0PY (tel 020 7679 7499 email l.daniel@ucl.ac.uk).

Candidates should indicate on the application form under Programme of Study’ that they are applying for the AHRC CDA studentship Dress, Adornment and Identity in Late Iron Age and Roman Britain’. The personal statement should outline your reasons for applying, suitability for the award and any other relevant information.

Please return completed application forms, including two letters of reference and transcript of degree results, directly to Lisa Daniel at the address above, and not to the UCL Admissions Office as indicated on the form.

It is anticipated that interviews will take place at the Institute of Archaeology on 6th July.

The closing date for applications is Monday, 15th June 2009.