Cunetio Hoard, Roman coin collection in Mildenhall, Great Britain
The Cunetio Hoard is a collection of roughly 55,000 Roman coins that were deposited in a large ceramic pot inside a lead container. The coins date from between 250 and 275 AD and together weigh more than 180 kilograms.
The hoard was discovered in 1978 at Cunetio, a Roman town in Wiltshire. The coins reflect a period when the Roman Empire was fractured in the west and local rulers minted their own currency.
The coins show how people conducted trade and which rulers they recognized across the region. You can see from the different mints and portraits how political loyalties shifted during unsettled times.
The Wiltshire Museum in Devizes displays the original pot in which the coins were discovered, while most of the coins themselves are held in London. It is worth visiting both locations to get a complete picture of the discovery.
The coins were discovered by a farm worker who stumbled upon the container quite by chance while working in the field. This chance finding could easily have been lost if experts had not been notified quickly.
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