The Portable Antiquities Scheme

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CORONER'S REPORT

1500 (estimate) Roman base silver coins found on the site of BATH SPA, BATH

Circumstances of Find

During archaeological investigation by Cotswold Archaeology Ltd in advance of building work for the new Bath Spa, 16th November 2007.

Description of Find

The find consists of a block of perhaps 1500 base silver coins from which about 300 coins had become detached. The block remains intact for the present but the distribution of the detached coins is given in the list below. The final coins in the group date to the AD 260s, a time when Roman Britain was part of a group of rebellious provinces under the rule of a rival 'emperor' (to the one in Italy) sometimes called the 'Gallic Empire.' Earlier issues are present covering the preceding decades of the third century AD. A small number of the group are denarii (which had been the principle Roman denomination during the first two centuries of Roman rule) and the rest are radiates, the denarius-multiple introduced in AD 215 which began to take over as the main denomination in the course of the third century.

Summary

Septimius Severus(?) (AD 193-211), 1 (denarius)
Elagabalus (AD 218-222), 1 (denarius)
Gordian III (AD 238-244), 59 (including 3 denarii)
Philip I (AD 244-249), 45
Philip II, 3
Otacilia Severa, 5
Decius (AD 249-251), 17
Herennia Etruscilla, 6
Herennius Etruscus, 5
Hostilian, 1
Trebonianus Gallus (AD 251-253), 17
Volusian (AD 251-253), 6
Aemilian (AD 253), 3
Valerian I (AD 253-260), 21
Valerian II, 3
Mariniana, 1
Saloninus, 3
Gallienus (AD 253-268), 19
Salonina (AD 253-268),8
Gallic Empire Postumus (AD 260-268), 2
Uncertain, 78

Total, 303

Discussion

The coins are at present in a corrosion-fused block from which a minority has recently become detached providing immediate physical evidence that they were buried together in antiquity. Numismatically, the sample indicates a group of coins that would all have circulated together in the third century AD. Coins dating to before the emperor Septimius Severus (AD 193-211), whose major debasement of the silver coinage made earlier coin attractive to those wishing to remove them to take advantage of their higher silver content, are absent and this fits a known pattern for British hoards deposited as this time.

No references cited so far.

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Audit data

Created: Thursday 12th February 2009
Updated: Tuesday 31st January 2012