DetectingWales.com

This my treasure story to date. Back in February this year, I ventured to my permission farm. I'd already decided which field I was going to have a dabble in. I had to go round the edge of one field, which was under crop, to reach my target field. I swept the edge of this field as I went, with nothing to show for it until I got to the gate into the field I was aiming for and then bang got a cracking signal, dug down about 4" and out popped a nice Roman Bronze coin. I was well chuffed. Anyway my mind was set and into my target field I went. After about 2 hours of nothing but scrap I decided to head back to the car swinging as I went (as you do). When I got to the gate where I found the Roman, another signal and another Roman, even more chuffed. Right I thought lets give this area a good sweep. Boy am I glad I did, I dug out a further 23 Romans before the light started to fade. Anyway to cut a long story short, over a total of 4 visits I found a total of 93 Roman Coins (some fused together), a Roman Spoon, a part rim of a Roman Bronze Jug and a part rim of Roman Bronze Pot. All found scattered over an area about 20 metres x 6 metres. All items are now with FLO and going through the Treasure process. 

Wow you really have had a baptism of fire Wittsy and from a county not renowned for an abundance of recoverable history...well done you.
I think you are honour bound though to buy Val a box of Kleenex as I'm sure she could use them about now ;D

I take it Val is a Pembrokeshire Lass  ;)

Wow wittsy1 that's a real rarity in sunny Pembs...
I've heard of a few single coins but 93!!! Omg a true once in a lifetime find...
Where exactly did you find them?? Lol ( joke). 👍😮

Cheers Troutmaster, I can't tell you exactly where, but somewhere beteween the Irish Sea and the Pembrokeshire county line  ;)

There you go mark he's only narrowed it down for you  :o but take val you will cover  more ground ;D  ;) brilliant find though wittsy well done ;)

Now that's some serious Roman...
Yes Paul info has narrowed it down to the county lol
Val best be up too 14 hour sessions lol

Great story and illustrates once again what is waiting out there to be discovered. Love the spoon as well.

Well done - Its all down hill from here! :)

Cheers
Neil

Great find i`ll bet you still havn`t found them all. I found 86 at christmas time then when the farmer ploughed in May for maize i had another 21 from the same area go back and have a real slow go over good luck

Well done wittsy1, no wonder you were so chuffed, good luck on any other visits. AJ

If I had a pint of beer it would be well and truly diluted and bit salty.  If you sign up for the next Rally guess who's going to be following you around.

I'd guess Fishguard area.  There have been Roman coins found around there in the past, small hoards, indicating a Roman connection. Hope you haven't had all your luck in one go wittsy.   It could be a bit demoralising to come down to our level.

And yes I am in Pembs but by no means a lass any more. :'(

Val

Great story and well done!

Wittsy as you only found the top rim of the bronze jug there's probable more there to be found but deeper full of coins? Im thinking the plough has clipped the top of the hoard and bought a handful up but more lies below........ Is it possible to get a machine and strip the area?

Well done great find ;) 

Thats the stuff that dreams are made of . Well found Wittsy .

Well, thank you everyone for your comments. The FLO asked me to stop searching the spot for the time being so I hav'nt been back since. I don't know if they plan to investigate the site and have a dig, I did ask but did'nt really get an answer. They did say that because some of the coins where fused together, that this was evidence that they have come out of a pot of some sort so my guess is that there are more coins and possibly more artefacts deeper down. I will definitely go back to the spot once FLO decide what there doing.

I'm guessing that as the field was in crop in February it's planted with winter wheat or rape if so then it will be harvested in early August however if this is a regular crop then it could well be reseeded within weeks meaning the archaeologists have a very slim window of opportunity in which to do anything, as a "scattered" hoard, if that's what it is, they wouldn't dig without doing a geophysical survey to give them a target as they could always be just missing the main deposition and given that you found the coins on the headland there is always the off chance that they fell from the plough blade when turning ???
So my advice would be to check with your county archaeologist at the end of July or ask your farmer if they have been in contact as it's they who would be doing the survey and actual digging and if they have nothing planned or have no idea what your talking about then it's going to be another year and you need to act, inform your FLO that you intend to survey the main planted part of the field when the crop comes off and that if you find an "obvious" main hoard then you will leave it in situ and call them.
I would only inform them after you have cleared it with your farmer and only a day before you intend to start, as it took you 4 days to recover the ones you have you probably already have an idea of the direction of the scatter and generally hoards don't scatter any further than 5 meters due to reverse ploughing.
Good luck and keep us informed ;)

Thanks for the advice Geoff. Yes the crop is Rapeseed and is coming off end of July/beginning of August and beeing reseeded 5 weeks later. At this moment in time, I am the only one that knows the exact location of the find. The farmer knows about the find, obviously, and which field it is in but does not know the exact location. The way it was explained to me by FLO was that if they where going to visit the site they would require me to be in attendance to identify the area. It has been 4 months now since I handed the finds to FLO and reported to Coroner and I hav'nt heard anything. Me being a relative novice and not much experience with FLO's and Archaeologists I thought if any action was going to be taken I would have heard something by now. My thoughts where, and when the time was right, to go back and dig test holes by hand in various locations about 2 metres square and 6" to 8" deep and detect the dug out area and spoils. Hard work I know and will probably take a number of days. I will let the Farmer know and the FLO before I attempt this.

I'm afraid 4 months is nothing in terms of how long it can take (try 2 years) and the coroner won't move on it if he's been told that a survey will be done :-\
A 2 meter test pit isn't a test pit that's a hole lol 1 meter should do you, 2 meters by 8 inches is a ton of soil :o Your best bet is to beg, steal or borrow a Pi machine as after all the work digging you could be in the wrong place or you have found the majority of the hoard with nothing left to find ;)
I'm puzzled on why you were allowed not to say were it was found as it's one of the main things they ask for on a treasure case ???

Sorry Geoff, I did give them details on the Treasure Act form, location and grid reference. 2 years?  ::)

Unfortunately Geoff is right. They are exceedingly slow, even on Roman finds.  If your site is close enough to the shore there is another dept. that could speed things up a bit.

j.meek@DYFEDARCHAEOLOGY.ORG.UK

I've found them very helpful and a lot faster in responding.  James came back to me with a lot of info. on a site I reported to one of the usual FLO'S.  He also forwarded his finding on to them.  That was 3 years ago and I still haven't had so much as a 'Thanks, we're looking into it'

Val

It all comes down to cost and priorities at the end of the day with the vast majority of hoards having very little importance historically with the archaeological view being..."yes we know they had coins and yes we know they buried them, you have a hoard whoopei!!" they are concerned with the wider context in which it was buried so they think along the lines of if it's a totally scattered hoard then it's probably too late to learn anything and if there is the bulk of the hoard still to find in situ then after all the years of ploughing it's been there for nearly 2000 years...what's the rush

Have to disagree Geoff about distance where a hoard might be dragged to (experience on a site that was last ploughed in thirties and the hoard was located in 1800S ) The hoard was spread over a thousand square mtres and some coins were 12/15 inches...This grassland field was searched yet again and yet again produced 12O hammered coins and many hundreds of hours have been put on this field..Our conclusion is the hoard it was wrapped in cloth and part of a Abbey treasure buried at side of a ancient way at time of Irish brigandes attacking the rich monastic sites...I also read good fairy tales,but I have been involved in finding hoards .;.Nothing more exciting than trying to picture the person..Why and what happened to them...Rob ;D

If it were spread over a 1000 sq meters why do you think it was wrapped in cloth? Also if your guess of the treasure being buried in response to Viking raids then isn't it possible that the old saying of "not putting all your eggs in one basket" applies as it has in many other instances meaning that your dealing with more than one point of origin?
But even if only one then while 1000 sq meters sounds a lot it's only 31m X 31m and my rule of 5 meters in any direction would be 10m X 10m and without detailed knoweledge, which is impossible especially anecdotal, of the land ie flood, agriculture, tree clearance, lanscaping and natural movement due to topography it's difficult to comment on but it's the exception that proves the rule

Nice find.

interesting period too - I see a Tacitus / probus, Claudius Gothicus / Salonina and Gallienus - and the silver coin should be a bit earlier (and a Tetricus / Victorinus too).

So there's a mix of regular and gallic issues - don't get so many hoards from the mid 270s with regular mainland coins.

On the subject of time taken to treasure - it took me 2 1/2 years - and that was to get to the coroner - it's now at the BM and it might take until this time next year to be sorted.

Cheers for the info. During the Initial inspection of the coins at Cardiff Museum, the coin expert reckoned on 6 or 7 Emporers in amongst them and a couple of ladies.

Geoff the reason we think the coins were wrapped like a packet of polos in cloth ,was because when I first made original find in 1978 ,I was amazed that all coins had shiny centres when taken out of the ground ,but at that time had no idea why. Over that time I have read of two Manx hoards being found in rolls and I presume that they were held together by candle wax or goose grease to hold them together and might explain the shiny centres...This time we found 3 coins stuck together and middle coin was one of these continental copies with a lower silver content and that might explain the fusing together...We think that the abbey treasury might have found this a easier way of storing and counting before sending some of their monies to Rome..It might explain the distance of the spread with the roll been broken up into segments and dragged to be broken up and spread across this big area..We cant proof any of this but it makes a great story for year 1328 when Richard De Mandeville came back have a second bite at Abbey treasures with his Irish Brigandes ...Rob