A metal detectorist who illegally excavated a Roman coin and silver hoard in the Hildesheim area of Lower Saxony in 2017 has confessed to the authorities after concealing its existence for eight years. The hoard consists of around 450 silver denarii, several silver bars, a gold ring and a gold coin. It dates to the 1st century A.D., but beyond its monetary value, it is of great archaeological importance. It is one of the largest Roman Imperial hoards ever discovered in Lower Saxony.
The hoard was discovered in the woods near Borsum by metal detectorist Jannik Pauli. Pauli has been metal detecting since he was a child, and as an adult never got the official permit required to metal detect legally. He frequently got into arguments over it with city officials, so when he uncovered a hoard of hundreds of silver coins and other precious objects he decided just to loot them and keep quiet lest he be fined or legally sanctioned. He kept the treasure in a wooden box in his home in the Achtum neighborhood of Hildesheim.
In April of this year, Pauli told the police what he’d done and handed over the treasure. The prosecutor’s office tried to put a case together against him, but Pauli had kept mum so long the statute of limitations had run out. He pointed archaeologists to the find site and in October a team explored the area thoroughly.
The Lower Saxony State Office for Monument Preservation, in cooperation with the Lower Monument Protection Authority of the Hildesheim district and the Hildesheim City Archaeology Department, conducted an archaeological investigation of the area surrounding the suspected site. The aim of the archaeological probing was to locate the illegal excavation site in 2017 and to recover objects still in the ground. Particular attention was paid to the question of whether, despite the destroyed context of the finds due to improper excavation in 2017, information about the manner in which the coins were deposited 2,000 years ago could still be obtained. Additional coins were found during this investigation; the entire hoard was recovered following the excavation.
The Borsum Hoard is now being conserved and studied by the Lower Saxony State Office for Monument Preservation. Archaeologists hope to be able to narrow down the chronology of the deposition, to determine the origins of the silver. Scientific analysis may help identify whether the hoard was buried by Romans or by Germanic tribesmen to keep it safe during conflict intending to return when the fighting was over.
As for Jannik Pauli, he is now 31 and appears to have repented the errors of his early 20s. He has taken the Lower Saxony State Office for Monument Preservation’s metal detector course, a necessary step to becoming a legally permitted metal detectorist.
So far, I had no idea about that interesting find.
Indeed, it may have been Romans, who buried it, or it may have been tribesmen, who “picked it up”. Thirdly, it may have been some sort of deliberate payment by the Romans to hand-picked chieftains in the 1st century.
Likewise, the area is of interest:
The find site is ca. 100km to the East of the ‘Kalkriese’ battlefield site, which almost certainly is the ‘Teutoburg Forest’ site of 9AD, where three Roman legions were annihilated. Also, it is 50km to the North of the 3rd century ‘Harzhorn’ battlefield.
…those were not the first Roman silver coins in the area. So far, they all seem to be from pre-9AD. In 1868, the ‘Hildesheim Treasure’ of 73 exquisit silver items had been unearhed.
In 12 to 8 BC, Drusus and then Tiberius had subjugated numerous tribes between the Rhine and the Elbe, but a lasting pacification was not achieved.
15km NW from the Borsum coins, there was the Roman camp of Wilkenburg (south of Hannover) with coins from 2BC to 1AD. – Cf. the “Immensum Bellum” and Velleius Paterculus, who took part, bk.2 ch.104–119. At Gehrden, 10km west of Wilkenburg, another 30 coins were found in 1902.
The youngest coins from the Kalkriese battlefield site, in contrast to that, date to 7-9AD and they are stamped „VAR“/ Varus.