The UK is the Golden land for finding Roman treasure

[Neil]

More Roman gold is found in Britain than anywhere else - and now a Welsh academic has come up with an intriguing theory explaining why.

Thousands of gold and silver artifacts from the Roman period, especially when the conquerors finally left these islands in the 4th and 5th centuries.

Dr Peter Guest, of Cardiff University's School of History and Archaeology, is the leading expert on the biggest ever Roman gold treasure discovered in Britain. In 1992, 15,000 gold and silver coins were found at Hoxne in Suffolk in 1992.

In a lecture, Dr Guest is to propose that the large amounts of Roman gold and silver buried beneath our feet could be because something happened in the late Empire similar to the abolition of the gold standard in the 1930s.

 He explained, "The Hoxne treasure is the biggest collection of gold and silver from anywhere in the world.

"A very small part of eastern England produces more gold and silver in the ground than Italy, Greece, Syria or North Africa.

"The amount deposited in the ground is substantial compared to the rest of the world. Why that is remains a mystery. Why is there so much precious metal from that particular period in Britain?"

Dr Guest explained that the gold mostly comes from a 50-year period towards the end of Roman occupation.

He said, "Before then, Britain is not very special, but in that 50-year phase, which coincides with the end of Roman control, lots of stuff is found.

"It normally consists of gold jewellery, spoons, toothpicks, thousands of coins and other items. I think connected to the fact that the Roman administration in Britain stops around 400 to 410 and the fact that the separation Britain experienced from the Roman Empire would have been so sudden.

"We had been part of the Empire for 350 years by that time, which is a very long time.

"It happened very suddenly and it might have been quite violent and one of the reasons for the huge amount of gold and silver is related to this separation.

"People weren't able to leave Britain and move somewhere else or weren't able to reuse it and recycle it and for some reason it has just stayed there." A theory already exists that people buried the treasure because of invasion from the Angles and Saxons of northern Germany.

Dr Guest said, " It is based on the Angles, Saxons and German groups coming over via the North Sea conquering eastern England, forcing all this gold and silver to be buried .

"The reason for that would have been people were being forced into slavery or killed.

"I think there is an element of truth in that but to blame the collapse of Roman gold on the Saxons is unfair. They wanted to come over here and live like the Romans, there was no point in them destroying everything.

"We need to be more careful and sophisticated in the way we approach this. The period we are looking at was known as the Dark Ages, there is very little archeological or historical evidence from the time."

[rjm]

Not much found in Wales.........yet ! 

[waltonbasinman]

Interesting read Neil and having worked with Peter a few times he does know his stuff. I would love to find just one piece of gold any period. Watch this space........... NOT

[tyna]

Very interesting Neil

[rjm]

Very interesting Neil

Neil's interesting?    have you ever met him   

[dances with badgers]

gimmie the gold yum yum

[Pipster]

Thanks Niel a very interesting read 

[drangonesqus]

what i say may be controversial so take it in good spirit

I thought i add some thoughts on this from another perspective that in the case that i completely disagree with its
1) golden land
2)more has been in here than europe- i must completely say that is false

on 1) this may be the fact that there are about 100,000 people estimated that detect on uk soil.... and there has been detecting since mid seventies which is a lot of time in comparison to how widespread it is in europe which is nowhere near the amount.

Europe had massive celtic cities,uk had small celtic towns with farmers /nobles. Europe had more resources natural -gold mines in gaul france are off the scale compared to uk .Plus more people,more money,more economy,more trade,more exotic goods,more demand of people buying and selling things.

GOLD MASKS AND things have been found in europe as their kings were ALOT more powerful than uk so they wud have had soo much more money,imagine Persia kingdom Bablyon in 7th century bc compared to minor Camulodunum(colchester )capital in england or EBORACUM(york) north.

2)NO CHANCE ON EARTH!!!!
THE logic defies argument rely ,i mean how can you make such crazy statements or is it not just me who see this!!
Lets take for example troy,or greece empriee in 4th century these empires were massive,rich beyond compare and powerful so there will be massive amounts of money they had in compared to uk. If Uk has had more gold(which i completely disagree with and plus the fact that in places like serbia,egypt,greece,turkey and other places eastern europe there has been an illegal{unrecorded} trade in antiquites going on for centuries without being on record) it is only because  more is recorded from detectorists and the organization of society here in the west as everything recorded much more detailed to the law.


I hope i have de-glazed this argument for good !! or nailed it down as that welsh geezer is just nuts with that theory..

peace out
Chekotay

[Neil]

Thats an interesting first post! Now breathe and relax.

Dr Peter Guest's theory is exactly that a theory regarding why substantially more amounts of Roman gold artefacts are found in the UK than on mainland Europe. He's not implying that Roman Britain had wealthier cities than Troy, Ephesus or Alexandria. What he was getting at is that more Roman gold is found and declared in the UK than anywhere else regardless of the number of detectorists elsewhere or how wealthy the countries were.

The main crux of the theory being that collosal amounts of personal wealth were buried in haste and for whatever reason not reclaimed and hence have stayed there waiting for us to wander over detector in hand.

Interesting debate

Cheers
Neil

[Chef Geoff]

Well to add my two penneth worth.
First there are no where near 100,000 detectorists in the UK at least not regular ones the most recent estimation is between 18-25,000, the 100,000 figure comes from machine sales over 5 years.

I think you are right Neil in saying that Pro-Rata there are more gold hoards found than in Europe. But Dragonesqus is correct in stating that Britain can't even come close in terms of the major European civilisations that had come before, but of course we are talking about the 400 years of Roman control, before the Romans started spreading across Europe most of the wealthy kingdoms had amassed their wealth by plunder and retreat on an annular basis, The ancient Britons didn't have this luxury.

I thought the reason was well known (see the quote below) and I think Dr Guest is somewhat looking for publicity as nowhere else in the empire was occupied for so long and relinquished so quickly, so true comparisons can't be drawn.

[drangonesqus]

Good reply guys and interesting and true also ...
i'd also like to add that most hoards the experts propose are for buried to gods or for ritual purposes - which doesnt equate because they had similar beliefs in europe from the same spectrum..

The fact on the amount of people with detectors...you must have to agree that uk has more detector shops,rallies,merchandise,machines sold,no reswtrictions(Apart from a few and on no go heritage sites) on where to detect and population of detectors per land size in comparison to europe is larger  also.

In fact one could argue that the hoards for safekeeping aswell as gods is more in europe just people havent covered the sort of land that they have with detectors in the uk. If you  weighed up the amount of land detected on in uk in comparison to land in europe with the same area at places like greece italy etc you can hell bet your money that there countries would skyrocket the amount of hoards in the uk.

The fact is and remains that they didnt have banks and there produce/wealth/living items were buried there also for safekeeping and also for ritual. Its just the fact more detecting done in uk.

So all of us have equally valid points but the fact remains that EUROPE will (per land area) have and has far more hoards than UK .

DE GLAZED TIMES 2

[Al.Thepastfinder, ( Alan )]

 hmmm i must get back out there searching me finks,