A group of 131 gold coins discovered sporadically over the course of 30 years in a West Norfolk field have been declared the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon coins ever discovered in England. The Norfolk coroner opened an inquest on Wednesday to determine whether the coins qualify as treasure.
Notice how crude and childish the art is on these coins, compared with the Greek coins from the hoard I posted about the other day from Corinth, and which were minted 900 years earlier.
The hoard was buried around 600 A.D. It contains mostly Frankish tremisses, small gold coins made in what is now France and the low countries in the early 7th century.
In addition to the Frankish coins, there are nine gold solidi of the Byzantine Empire, a larger coin worth about three tremisses. Four other gold objects — a bracteate pendant, an ingot and two fragments of larger pieces of jewelry — were also part of the hoard.
Individual pieces were discovered in this one field in West Norfolk now and again by detectorists and archaeologists starting in 1991. The biggest group, about 35 coins, were unearthed by a single metal detectorist between 2014 and 2020. The detectorist, who has chosen to remain anonymous, reported to them to the Norfolk Finds liaison officer as required by law.
"The detectorist, who has chosen to remain anonymous, reported to them to the Norfolk Finds liaison officer as required by law."
ReplyDelete'Cause if the state doesn't get their 99%, you won't get your 1%.
And he's a schmuck for doing so.
ReplyDelete“Hoards” is a good name for these discoveries. Literally they could not “take it with them.” So if you try to turn them over for yourself you’re down the evade and escape rabbit hole fencing them for pennies on the dollar or melting them down to look like nugget just mined. And after that all it takes is a jilted lover ratting you out for a reward.
ReplyDeleteI think the 'finds officer' would have to find me. I'd dump them in a river before I turned them over to the government.
ReplyDelete