A hoard of 404 Roman and English gold and silver coins has been discovered in Bunnik, a village in the province of Utrecht, Netherlands. The most recent coins, struck in 46-47 A.D., are in excellent condition with no wear and tear from circulation, so the hoard was likely buried in or shortly after 47 A.D. It is the largest Roman-era coin find ever made in the province of Utrecht, and the first mix of Roman and English coins ever found in mainland Europe.

They were discovered by metal detectorists Reinier Koelink and Gert-Jan Messelaar in 2023. The duo immediately reported the find to the Archeology Reporting Point of Landschap Heritage Utrecht and the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands followed-up with a thorough excavation and investigation of the find site. They determined the area was a wetland on a small watercourse in the 1st century. The soil was too wet for construction or agriculture. The spatial distribution of the coins indicate a single deposition, although there was some scattering from later agricultural activity.

The bulk of the hoard consists of 288 Roman silver denarii struck between 200 B.C. and 47 A.D., including King Juba I of Numidia. Of the gold coins, there are 72 Roman aurei dating from 19 B.C. to 47 A.D., and 44 gold staters from England, struck between 5 and 43 A.D. They are made of an alloy of gold, silver and copper, hence their rosy hue, and are inscribed with the name “CVNO,” an abbreviation of Cunobelinus, king of the Catuvellauni tribe who ruled between about 5 and 40 A.D. Four of the staters were struck posthumously by his successors, Togodumnus and/or Caratacus.

The range of dates suggests the staters may have been distributed as spoils to the army after the Roman conquest of Britain. Two of the most recent coins, aurei struck in 47 A.D. during the reign of the Emperor Claudius (r. 41–54 A.D.), were struck with the same die and are in uncirculated mint condition. This suggests they were part of a single batch of coins used as military pay, and that the hoard likely belonged to a Roman soldier returning from the invasion of England with the Roman coins as pay (stipendio) and the English coins as distributed war booty (donativum).

The large size and the high proportion of gold coins points to this having been the pay of a higher ranking officer like a centurion rather than a soldier. A estimate of the total value of the coins converted into silver denarii (the standard denomination for military wages) is 2,401. A soldier’s annual salary was 938 denarii; a centurion’s was 3,375.

Bunnik is located along the Lower Germanic Limes, the northern border of the Roman Empire, but not near any of the major forts and cities like Fort Trajecum (Utrecht) and Ulpia Noviomagus (Nijmegen). There was a castellum (a watch tower) there which was absorbed into the limes under Claudius. It’s plausible that the Roman troops that participated in the conquest of England from 43-47 A.D. could have passed through this spot on the limes on their return to mainland Europe.

The coins have been allocated to the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden where they are available to researchers and to the general public in the “Netherlands in Roman times” gallery.

An exceptional deposit of 141 Roman gold coins dating to the late 4th century has been unearthed near Holzthum in northern Luxembourg. The coins are gold solidi struck during the reigns of nine emperors who reigned between 364 and 408 A.D.

Three of the 141 solidi were issued by Emperor Eugenius whose coins are rare because he reigned for only two years (392-394 A.D.) and was never acknowledged as western emperor by the eastern emperor Theodosius. Eugenius was installed by the powerful general of Frankish origin Arbogast after the previous emperor, Valentinian II, was found hanged in his bedroom under mysterious circumstances. Theodosius had appointed Arbogast Valentinian II’s guardian, and he looked askance upon the death and replacement shenanigans.

He looked even more askance when Eugenius fired all of Theodosius’ hand-picked administrators at the imperial court, pacified the dwindling but vocal pagan senatorial contingent by using public moneys to restore the Altar of Victory in the Curia and revived alliances with the Franks and Alemanni, recruiting them for his army. Theodosius blew off the ambassadors Eugenius sent requesting his official recognition as Augustus of the West and instead proclaimed his eight-year-old son Honorius western Augustus. Two years after his ascension to the throne, Eugenius met Theodosius’ army at the Battle of the Frigidus on the border between modern-day Italy and Slovenia and was routed. Eugenius was captured, executed and his head put on display; Abrogast committed suicide.

(These events don’t make Eugenius an usurper, I’ll note, despite the claim made in the press release about the gold solidi. If being installed by powerful military leaders made a Roman emperor an usurper, there would hardly be a legitimate one on the list. It seems to me that if anyone was usurping the western throne, it was Theodosius giving his puppet baby the title.)

In the late 4th century when the solidi were struck, Luxembourg was part of the Roman province of Gallia Belgica, but the Franks were moving in in large numbers, wresting control from the old Gallic tribes. Roman forces left the territory in 406 A.D., right around the time when the last of the coins were issued. The coin deposit is unique on the archaeological record of Luxembourg.

The first gold coins were discovered by a pair of amateur archaeologists in September of 2019. They were looking for potsherds in a field as they had done many times before. One of them took a break and wandered over to the adjacent field where the glint of gold caught his eye. It was a Roman coin, shining in near-mint condition, entirely exposed on the surface of the soil. They scanned the field with metal detectors and in just an hour, found almost 40 coins.

They did not dig them up, thankfully. Instead, they informed the authorities and Luxembourg’s National Institute for Archaeological Research (INRA) carried out professional excavations at the site from 2020 through 2024. The two original finders were invited to be part of the excavation team, much to their delight. The announcement of the finds was kept quiet until last month to prevent looters descending upon the site.

In order to ensure that all the buried objects were discovered, the excavations were carried out with the utmost care and extended over several years. These operations also had to take into account the specific dangers of the region, due to the presence of numerous munitions and explosive devices dating from the Second World War. For this reason, the archaeologists collaborated with the Luxembourg Army Mine Action Service (SEDAL).

In addition to the coin deposit, the excavations also discovered the remains of a late Roman burgus, a small fortified observational tower found most commonly on the Germanic borders of the Empire in the 4th century, with several graves around it.

The gold solidi are in excellent condition and because they include very rare examples, INRA experts have evaluated the value of the coins at 308,600 euros, approximately $322,000. The Ministry of Culture has paid the valuation sum as a finder’s fee to the landowner and acquired the coins for the nation. The ministry is working with INRA to plan where and when they will go on public display after they are fully processed, conserved and studied.

A hoard of 1,368 Roman and Iron Age silver coins dating to the reign of Nero has been discovered in Worcestershire, western England. Dubbed the Worcestershire Conquest Hoard because of it was buried just a dozen or so years after the Roman conquest of Britain, it is the largest hoard from the reign of Nero ever discovered in the entire territory of the Roman Empire. It’s one of the most important archaeological finds made in Worcestershire, which has few notable Roman archaeological remains and was still the borderland between areas controlled by Rome and ones controlled by Iron Age Britons when the hoard was buried.

The hoard was discovered late last year by builders in the Leigh and Bransford area of Worcestershire. The coins were placed in a ceramic pot that was likely made in one of several pottery kilns in operation at the foot of the Malvern Hills. Most of the coins are silver denarii minted in Rome, the earliest dating to 157 B.C., the most recent to 55 A.D. There is one solitary gold coin, a stater minted for the local Dobunni tribe who lived in Worcestershire between 20 and 45 A.D. The most recent coins are in near-mint condition, indicating they cannot have been in circulation long, so the hoard was likely buried in 55 A.D. or shortly thereafter.

In the late 50s A.D., Nero appointed governors Quintus Veranius and Gaius Suetonius Paulinus who aggressively pursued the conquest of Wales. Worcestershire was in the thick of the action.

Dr Murray Andrews, Lecturer in British Archaeology, UCL Institute of Archaeology says:

“This extraordinary new find is one of the largest early Roman hoards ever found in Britain. It gives us a glimpse of a brief moment in time 2,000 years ago, when the frontiers of the Roman Empire ran from North Africa and the Near East to the Malvern Hills and the River Severn.

Our initial research suggests that the hoard relates to military expenditure – perhaps official payments to a wealthy local farmer or merchant, who was supplying grain and livestock to the Roman fort at Worcester. It was buried at a time of unrest in the Welsh Borders, when local groups like the Silures fought back against the advancing Roman army, so it’s possible that the original owner was trying to protect their money from the threat of conflict and border raids.

The hoard unlocks an important window on the history and archaeology of Roman Britain, and further study will help us understand more about how and why these coins came to be buried where and when they were. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime find, and a real Worcestershire treasure.”

It was declared official Treasure by the Coroner for Worcestershire in June 2024 and a valuation committee assessed its fair market value as £100,000. Of course Museums Worcestershire is most extremely keen to acquire the hoard for permanent exhibition. In order to apply for grants and funding for the whole sum, they have to show local interest is high. Worcestershire Heritage, Art & Museums charity has launched a fundraising campaign to raise £6,000 to show grant authorities that the people of Worcestershire want to keep it in the county where it has been for 1,945 years. The news only broke Monday, and it was a banner Cyber Monday for the crowdfunding campaign. As of Tuesday afternoon, they had raised £5,493, 91% of the target.

The hoard is currently being catalogued and conserved at the Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum where it will go on temporary display in January. If the campaign to acquire the treasure is successful, the hoard will be moved to the Worcestershire County Museum at Hartlebury Castle