I apologise if you have heard about this before but I hope it is still as interesting today as it was when i first found it.
Back in December 2000 after some research I decided to ask permission to detect a field that had some type of Roman building on it, my friend and I were given permission but were told that Cardiff Scan Club had detected on this field for 20 years, so as you can imagine our bubble had burst, but as we were there we decided to detect anyway, my friend went off in his straight lines as always, i let my mind take me where ever it felt as normal, after about 15 mins I approached the edge of a raised area and had a signal which then disappeared, but the signal was still ringing in the headphones, if you have ever had a Minelab Sovereign you will know what i mean, i think they call it pitch hold, anyway i had a signal which was ringing in the headphones but i could not find it again to pinpoint, i was just about to walk away and the same thing happened again, after a few mins I was just about to carry on detecting when I thought to myself that there must be something there to give me a signal so i scraped some of the soil away and tried again, this time I had a clear signal.
I dug down to about 10" and checked the hole and the signal was very strong, but I could not see anything in the hole, just bed rock, it was beginning to rain and was about 1 hour away from darkness, I was cold and damp and was about to fill the hole in when I saw a piece of pottery lying in the hole, I picked the piece of pottery up and called my friend over, I asked him if it was a bit of Roman pottery and as he looked at the piece of pottery I looked into the hole and could see the lip of a pot, my friend run his Explorer over the hole and said to me you have found a hoard, I said it is probably a burial urn, but it seemed a bit small for a burial urn, I put my fingers into the darker soil in the pot and after a couple of scoops i started pulling coins out, this is the feeling you will never forget, coin after coin after coin, the pot unfortunately did not come out in one piece but is 90% complete,the person who had buried them had removed some bed rock and had put them in this hole which was 17" deep and had been missed by the plough and had probably been below the floor boards of the house, they were recorded with the Museum and are currently on display in the museum.
The Hoard consisted of 103 Silver Denarii of all the Emperors from Nero to Antoninus Pius including Galba, Otho & Titus and also a Rare issue of Trajans sister Diva Marciana and up untill recently was the most important Hoard of its type to be found in Wales in 40 years.
Not the most important find I have had but one that I will never forget.
I hope you enjoy the story & keep at it, guys
Steve.[/right]
Great story Steve, that's got my duices going,
