COIN HOARD

Report by Richard Abdy, Department of Coins and Medals at the British Museum:

St Levan II is clearly a discrete deposit whose pit lies some distance away from St Levan I (2009 T558; 20 sestertii to AD 235 discovered by the same finder) although both were late sestertius hoards. With St Levan II, only the presence of a handful of third century types reveals that the majority of the coins had been in circulation for over a century. We are fortunate that a single example of Postumus (the last emperor to issue the sestertius denomination in the west) is present - the much smaller St Levan I only ran up to the reign of Severus Alexander but at twenty coins would have been statistically unlikely to contain these late pieces even if abandoned at the same time as St Levan II. Two sestertius fractions are present in St Levan II: a dupondius, and a dupondius or as, both of Hadrian. The average condition of the coins is therefore well worn and close identification not possible on the majority of specimens.

The aes of Postumus seem only to have been produced in the initial series of the reign, placing the dating for the last issues of sestertii in the west to AD 260-1 (hence the terminus post quem of St Levan II). These hoards, which also occur more frequently in Northern France have been looked at in detail by Dominique Hollard: 'La Thésaurisation du Monnayage de Bronze de Postume : Structure et Chronologie des Dépôts Monétaires' in TM XIII (1992), pp.73-105. See also the Nevill Holt hoard (Leics) for a slightly larger UK sestertius and fractions find terminating in the sestertii of Postumus (two specimens of Postumus were identifiable) but largely containing issues of the second century (2003 T269; 253 AE to AD 261).

Summary

Vespasian (AD 69-79) 1 (dp)

Domitian (AD 81-96) 2

Nerva (AD 96-8) 2

Trajan (AD 98-117) 20

Hadrian (AD 117-38) 25 (incl. 1x dp; 1x dp/as)

Sabina 2

?Aelius 1

Antoninus Pius (AD 138-61) 21

Faustina I 2

Diva Faustina I 5

Marcus Caesar 8

Faustina II 1

Marcus Aurelius (AD 161-80) 16

Lucius Verus (AD 161-9) 4

Uncertain Marcus / Verus 1

Divus Pius 2

Divus Verus 1

Faustina II 9

Lucilla 6

Diva Faustina II 2

Commodus Augustus 2

Commodus (AD 180-92) 16

Divus Marcus 4

Crispina 2

Septimius Severus (AD 193-211) 2 (Wars of Succession)

Julia Domna 1 (prob. Wars of Succession)

Albinus Caesar 1

Caracalla (AD 211-7) 1

Severus Alexander (AD 222-35) 4

Gordian III (AD 238-44) 1

Postumus (AD 260-9) 1

Uncertain Antonine emperor 2 (one of these coins, #97b, identified after cleaning as Marcus Aurelius, BMC 1398 / RIC 1006)

Uncertain Antonine empress 4

Uncertain emperor 7

Total 179