Science1 publisher2 min readPublished
Field near Wesseling yields 934 Roman denarii, Germany's largest Hadrian-era hoard
Rhineland archaeologists recovered 934 silver denarii near Wesseling, a hoard officials rank as Germany's largest of Hadrian's era and fifth worldwide. Most of the coins were struck under the Flavian emperors, decades before the Hadrian-era piece that dates the burial.
The Scientist · Science desk
What happened
- Metal detectorist Oliver Riedl found 15 denarii in the field and, with his detector still signalling, notified the Rhineland heritage office immediately.
- Excavators lifted the coins inside a block of soil and X-rayed it in the LVR-Landesmuseum Bonn's restoration workshop before extracting individual coins.
- Fragments of ceramic and straw turned up during that work, and LVR-ABR adviser Rahel Otte said the coins were likely buried in a straw-padded pot.
- Together the coins weigh 3.1 kilograms of silver, and the hoard is now on display at the LVR-Landesmuseum Bonn.
Compiled by The ScientistSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- constraint The 'fifth largest worldwide' ranking comes from the state archaeologist, and the published account does not list the larger hoards or say whether size means coin count or weight, so outsiders cannot yet check it.
- precedent The LVR-ABR credits Riedl's prudence for a complete, professional recovery, which makes stopping at 15 coins and reporting the conduct it now holds up for detectorists.
- capability Because the block was X-rayed before any coin came out, the team could study the hoard intact, and that is how traces of the burial container were found along with the coins.
A hoard cannot have gone into the ground before its newest coin was struck [5]. At Wesseling that coin dates from 124 or 125 CE. That is about seven years into the reign of Hadrian, who ruled from 117 to 138 CE [c10, c11, d6]. The oldest coin was minted in 148 BCE under the Republic, about 270 years earlier [c10, d2]. Most of the coins belong to the Flavian period, 69 to 96 CE. From that spread the researchers suggest the owner may have started saving as early as 100 CE and buried the pot under Hadrian [c12, c13]. The mint dates fix only the earliest possible burial date. The saving period is the researchers' inference from how the dates cluster [d5, c13].
Divided across 934 coins, the 3.1 kilograms works out to about 3.3 grams of silver per coin [4]. Officials say the hoard's exact value is hard to measure [14], so the comparisons on offer are wages. Archaeological evidence suggests a legionnaire earned about 300 denarii a year, which makes the hoard worth roughly 3.1 years of a soldier's pay [c15, d1]. A laborer earned up to one denarius a day, according to the British Museum, and would have needed at least 934 working days to earn the same sum [c16, d3]. Those figures measure income. The account does not include prices, so it cannot tell us what the silver would have bought on the Lower Rhine in the 120s.
Nobody knows who buried the coins. LVR-ABR archaeologists suggest it may have been someone living on a nearby Roman estate [19]. On motive, state archaeologist Erich Claßen said: "Of course, we can only speculate about the motives, but most likely someone wanted to keep this money safe. Because there were no banks at that time." [17] He suggests the owner may have died before telling anyone about the coins or where they were [18].
At the time the Lower Rhine was a frontier protecting the empire from Germanic tribes. Cologne was the provincial capital and Bonn a legionary fortress [20]. LVR-ABR officials told Discover that Wesseling, now an industrial city, had a legionary camp and civilian infrastructure. The hoard itself has not been directly linked to any nearby site [21].
What to watch
- Publication of the comparison behind Claßen's 'fifth largest worldwide' ranking, naming the four larger hoards and whether size is counted in coins or weight.
- A full catalogue of mint dates for the 934 coins, which would test the researchers' suggestion that saving began around 100 CE.
- Survey or excavation work that ties the find to a specific Roman estate or to Wesseling's legionary camp.