Stanchester Hoard
Encyclopedia
The Stanchester Hoard is a hoard
of 1,166 Roman coins
dating from the fourth to early fifth century found at Wilcot, in the Vale of Pewsey
, Wiltshire
, England
in 2000. The find was considered important because of the large quantity of unclipped
silver coins contained within. It was also the latest dated example of Roman coins found in Wiltshire.
s. It had been buried in a flagon
made from the pottery known as Alice Holt pottery
. The hoard was named after the former Stanchester villa, a nearby Roman villa
with which the hoard was likely to have been associated, along with the Wansdyke earthwork
. Excavations of the Stanchester villa in 1931 and 1969 revealed a wall and evidence for a Roman central heating system
. Roof and flue tiles and pottery shards were dated by associated coins, which dated from the 2nd to the 4th centuries.
The Wiltshire Heritage Museum
in Devizes
acquired the hoard for £50,000 following a coroner's inquest which declared it treasure trove
.
, 33 silver miliarense
s—many described as in "mint condition", 1129 silver siliqua
e and one copper-alloy nummus
, as well as a fragment of a bronze ring. The earliest coin was struck in the reign of Constantine I
starting in 307; the latest coin was struck in 406 during the joint reign of Arcadius
and Honorius
. The silver coins were not clipped, suggesting that they had never been circulated. Within a year of the latest minting, Constantine III
, declared emperor by his troops, crossed to Gaul with an army and was defeated by Honorius; it is unclear how many Roman troops remained or ever returned, or whether a commander-in-chief in Britain was ever reappointed.
The coins came from a number of mints
across the Roman Empire. The mints were Siscia, Sirmium
, Constantinople
, Trier
, Aquileia
, Lyons
, Rome
, Thessaloniki
, Milan
and Antioch
.
whorls, pottery and a flint
knife were found in an area known as Stanchester in Curry Rivel
, Somerset
.
Other Roman places in England named Stanchester include the site of another villa in Pitchford
, Shropshire
.
Hoard
In archaeology, a hoard is a collection of valuable objects or artifacts, sometimes purposely buried in the ground. This would usually be with the intention of later recovery by the hoarder; hoarders sometimes died before retrieving the hoard, and these surviving hoards may be uncovered by...
of 1,166 Roman coins
Roman currency
The Roman currency during most of the Roman Republic and the western half of the Roman Empire consisted of coins including the aureus , the denarius , the sestertius , the dupondius , and the as...
dating from the fourth to early fifth century found at Wilcot, in the Vale of Pewsey
Vale of Pewsey
The Vale of Pewsey or Pewsey Vale is an area of Wiltshire, England to the east of Devizes and south of Marlborough, centred on the town of Pewsey.-Geography:...
, Wiltshire
Wiltshire
Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 2000. The find was considered important because of the large quantity of unclipped
Coin clipping
Coin debasement is the act of decreasing the amount of precious metal in a coin, while continuing to circulate it at face value. This was frequently done by governments in order to inflate the amount of currency in circulation; typically, some of the precious metal was replaced by a cheaper metal...
silver coins contained within. It was also the latest dated example of Roman coins found in Wiltshire.
Discovery
The hoard was discovered in a field on 25 July 2000 by John and David Philpott, using metal detectorMetal detector
A metal detector is a device which responds to metal that may not be readily apparent.The simplest form of a metal detector consists of an oscillator producing an alternating current that passes through a coil producing an alternating magnetic field...
s. It had been buried in a flagon
Flagon
A flagon is a large leather, metal or ceramic vessel, commonly a pitcher, often used for drink, whether this be water, ale, or something else.-Christian use:...
made from the pottery known as Alice Holt pottery
Alice Holt Forest
Alice Holt Forest is a former royal forest in Hampshire, situated some south of Farnham, Surrey. Once predominantly an ancient oak forest, it was particularly noted in the 18th and 19th centuries for the timber it supplied for the building of ships for the Royal Navy. It is now planted mainly with...
. The hoard was named after the former Stanchester villa, a nearby Roman villa
Roman villa
A Roman villa is a villa that was built or lived in during the Roman republic and the Roman Empire. A villa was originally a Roman country house built for the upper class...
with which the hoard was likely to have been associated, along with the Wansdyke earthwork
Wansdyke (earthwork)
Wansdyke is a series of early medieval defensive linear earthworks in the West Country of England, consisting of a ditch and a running embankment from the ditch spoil, with the ditching facing north. It runs at least from Maes Knoll in historic Somerset, a hillfort at the east end of Dundry Hill...
. Excavations of the Stanchester villa in 1931 and 1969 revealed a wall and evidence for a Roman central heating system
Hypocaust
A hypocaust was an ancient Roman system of underfloor heating, used to heat houses with hot air. The word derives from the Ancient Greek hypo meaning "under" and caust-, meaning "burnt"...
. Roof and flue tiles and pottery shards were dated by associated coins, which dated from the 2nd to the 4th centuries.
The Wiltshire Heritage Museum
Wiltshire Heritage Museum
The Wiltshire Heritage Museum, formerly known as Devizes Museum, is a museum, archive and library and art gallery in Devizes, Wiltshire, England. The museum was established and is still run by, the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society , a registered charity founded in 1853. After...
in Devizes
Devizes
Devizes is a market town and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. The town is about southeast of Chippenham and about east of Trowbridge.Devizes serves as a centre for banks, solicitors and shops, with a large open market place where a market is held once a week...
acquired the hoard for £50,000 following a coroner's inquest which declared it treasure trove
Treasure trove
A treasure trove may broadly be defined as an amount of money or coin, gold, silver, plate, or bullion found hidden underground or in places such as cellars or attics, where the treasure seems old enough for it to be presumed that the true owner is dead and the heirs undiscoverable...
.
Items discovered
The Stanchester Hoard contains three gold solidiSolidus (coin)
The solidus was originally a gold coin issued by the Romans, and a weight measure for gold more generally, corresponding to 4.5 grams.-Roman and Byzantine coinage:...
, 33 silver miliarense
Miliarense
A miliarense was the only fairly regularly minted silver coin issued by the late Roman and Byzantine Empires. It was struck with variable fineness, generally with a weight between 3.8 and 6.0 grams. The miliarense was struck from the beginning of the 4th century under Constantine I with a...
s—many described as in "mint condition", 1129 silver siliqua
Siliqua
The siliqua is the modern name given to small, thin, Roman silver coins produced from 4th century and later. When the coins were in circulation, the Latin word siliqua was a unit of weight defined as one-twentyfourth of the weight of a Roman solidus .The term siliqua comes from the siliqua graeca,...
e and one copper-alloy nummus
Nummus
Nummus , plural nummi is a Latin term meaning "coin", but used technically for a range of low-value copper coins issued by the Roman and Byzantine empires during late Antiquity....
, as well as a fragment of a bronze ring. The earliest coin was struck in the reign of Constantine I
Constantine I
Constantine the Great , also known as Constantine I or Saint Constantine, was Roman Emperor from 306 to 337. Well known for being the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, Constantine and co-Emperor Licinius issued the Edict of Milan in 313, which proclaimed religious tolerance of all...
starting in 307; the latest coin was struck in 406 during the joint reign of Arcadius
Arcadius
Arcadius was the Byzantine Emperor from 395 to his death. He was the eldest son of Theodosius I and his first wife Aelia Flaccilla, and brother of the Western Emperor Honorius...
and Honorius
Honorius (emperor)
Honorius , was Western Roman Emperor from 395 to 423. He was the younger son of emperor Theodosius I and his first wife Aelia Flaccilla, and brother of the eastern emperor Arcadius....
. The silver coins were not clipped, suggesting that they had never been circulated. Within a year of the latest minting, Constantine III
Constantine III (usurper)
Flavius Claudius Constantinus, known in English as Constantine III was a Roman general who declared himself Western Roman Emperor in Britannia in 407 and established himself in Gaul. Recognised by the Emperor Honorius in 409, collapsing support and military setbacks saw him abdicate in 411...
, declared emperor by his troops, crossed to Gaul with an army and was defeated by Honorius; it is unclear how many Roman troops remained or ever returned, or whether a commander-in-chief in Britain was ever reappointed.
| Reign | Date | № of coins | Empire |
|---|---|---|---|
| Constantinian Constantinian dynasty The Constantinian dynasty is an informal name for the ruling family of the Roman Empire from Constantius Chlorus to the death of Julian in 363. It is named after its most famous member, Constantine the Great who became the sole ruler of the empire in 324... |
307–363 | 99 | Western |
| Valentinian Valentinian Dynasty The Valentinian Dynasty or Valentinianic Dynasty, consisting of four emperors, ruled the Western Roman Empire from 364 to 392 and the Eastern Roman Empire from 364 to 378.*western emperors:**Valentinian I... |
364–392 | 863 | Western |
| Magnus Maximus Magnus Maximus Magnus Maximus , also known as Maximianus and Macsen Wledig in Welsh, was Western Roman Emperor from 383 to 388. As commander of Britain, he usurped the throne against Emperor Gratian in 383... |
383–388 | 197 | Western |
| Arcadius Arcadius Arcadius was the Byzantine Emperor from 395 to his death. He was the eldest son of Theodosius I and his first wife Aelia Flaccilla, and brother of the Western Emperor Honorius... /Honorius Honorius (emperor) Honorius , was Western Roman Emperor from 395 to 423. He was the younger son of emperor Theodosius I and his first wife Aelia Flaccilla, and brother of the eastern emperor Arcadius.... |
383–423 | 3 | E / W |
| Uncertain | – | 4 | – |
The coins came from a number of mints
Mint (coin)
A mint is an industrial facility which manufactures coins for currency.The history of mints correlates closely with the history of coins. One difference is that the history of the mint is usually closely tied to the political situation of an era...
across the Roman Empire. The mints were Siscia, Sirmium
Sirmium
Sirmium was a city in ancient Roman Pannonia. Firstly mentioned in the 4th century BC and originally inhabited by the Illyrians and Celts, it was conquered by the Romans in the 1st century BC and subsequently became the capital of the Roman province of Lower Pannonia. In 294 AD, Sirmium was...
, Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
, Trier
Trier
Trier, historically called in English Treves is a city in Germany on the banks of the Moselle. It is the oldest city in Germany, founded in or before 16 BC....
, Aquileia
Aquileia
Aquileia is an ancient Roman city in what is now Italy, at the head of the Adriatic at the edge of the lagoons, about 10 km from the sea, on the river Natiso , the course of which has changed somewhat since Roman times...
, Lyons
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
, Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...
, Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
and Antioch
Antioch
Antioch on the Orontes was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Orontes River. It is near the modern city of Antakya, Turkey.Founded near the end of the 4th century BC by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander the Great's generals, Antioch eventually rivaled Alexandria as the chief city of the...
.
Other Stanchester finds
In 1865, Roman tesserae, coins, pieces of bronze, shaleShale
Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock composed of mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals and tiny fragments of other minerals, especially quartz and calcite. The ratio of clay to other minerals is variable. Shale is characterized by breaks along thin laminae or parallel layering...
whorls, pottery and a flint
Flint
Flint is a hard, sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as a variety of chert. It occurs chiefly as nodules and masses in sedimentary rocks, such as chalks and limestones. Inside the nodule, flint is usually dark grey, black, green, white, or brown in colour, and...
knife were found in an area known as Stanchester in Curry Rivel
Curry Rivel
Curry Rivel is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated west of Somerton and east of Taunton in the South Somerset district. The parish has a population of 2,093...
, Somerset
Somerset
The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...
.
Other Roman places in England named Stanchester include the site of another villa in Pitchford
Pitchford
Pitchford is a small village in the English county of Shropshire. It is located between Cantlop and Acton Burnell.It is also the name for the civil parish.-External links:...
, Shropshire
Shropshire
Shropshire is a county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. It borders Wales to the west...
.