Treasury of Roman coins found during construction in Britain

A hoard of Roman coins worth more than $125,000 was found during a construction project in central England.

The stock of gold and silver coins dates back to the time of Roman Emperor Nero, according to Museums Worcestershire, which is raising money to bid for the coins and keep them in the county where they were found. The hoard of 1,368 coins, known as the Worcestershire Conquest Hoard, was buried in a pot and excavated by the public in late 2023, according to the museum.

“The Hoard is one of the most important archaeological discoveries in Worcestershire in the last 100 years,” the museum said.

According to the museum, most of the coins are silver denarii, and at the time of their creation, a single gold coin was minted for a British tribe living in the area. The pot itself was likely made in a pottery kiln in the region, the museum said. The coins were “almost certainly” brought to the area by Roman soldiers, with one theory shared by the museum suggesting that the coins may have belonged to a wealthy local farmer who made his money by supplying the army with grain and livestock.

“The treasure was collected and buried for a brief moment when Worcestershire was right on the edge of an expanding empire,” the museum said.

Dr. Murray Andrews, a lecturer in British archeology at University College London, told CBS affiliate BBC News that the discovery was “remarkable.”

“It’s the most amazing thing I’ve seen in the last 100 years,” he said. “It’s an important piece of archaeology. It tells us what happened here 2,000 years ago, when the Malvern Hills may have been the frontier of the Roman Empire.”

According to the BBC, this is the third hoard of coins found in the area in the past 25 years. In 2011, two metal detectorists found a clay pot full of 3,784 coins, according to the BBC, and in 1999, 434 silver coins and 38 pottery fragments were discovered.

If Museums Worcestershire cannot raise the necessary funds, the final treasure will be returned to the finders or the landowner and may never be shown to the public, according to the BBC.

“What a fantastic find and so important for anyone interested in learning more about the province’s heritage,” said Karen May, chair of the Joint Museum Committee, in a news release. “This is a true Worcestershire treasure, and it should be enjoyed by the people of Worcestershire for generations to come.”