Iron Age and Roman Coin Hoards in Britain

Book info: Iron Age and Roman Coin Hoards in Britain (Hardcover, 384 pages) – Oxbow Books, 2020. Language: English.

More coin hoards have been recorded from Roman Britain than from any other province of the Empire. This comprehensive and lavishly illustrated volume provides a survey of over 3260 hoards of Iron Age and Roman coins found in England and Wales with a detailed analysis and discussion.Theories of hoarding and deposition and examined, national and regional patterns in the landscape settings of coin hoards presented, together with an analysis of those hoards whose findspots were surveyed and of those hoards found in archaeological excavations. It also includes an unprecedented examination of the containers in which coin hoards were buried and the objects found with them. The patterns of hoarding in Britain from the late 2nd century BC to the 5th century AD are discussed. The volume also provides a survey of Britain in the 3rd century AD, as a peak of over 700 hoards are known from the period from AD 253–296. This has been a particular focus of the project which has been a collaborative research project between the University of Leicester and the British Museum funded by the AHRC. The aim has been to understand the reasons behind the burial and non-recovery of these finds. A comprehensive online database (https://finds.org.uk/database) underpins the project, which also undertook a comprehensive GIS analysis of all the hoards and field surveys of a sample of them.Table of ContentsForeword1. Introduction2. Overview and analysis of the dataset3. Theories of Hoarding and Deposition4. National and regional patterns in the landscape settings of coin hoards5. Analysis of excavated hoards6. Coin hoards as archaeological objects: material and context7. Coin hoards and society: chronological syntheses8. Coin hoards and society: debating the third century: crisis or continuity?9. Summary and conclusionsBibliographyIndex Editorial Reviews Review “Altogether the work is an exceptional illustration of the successes that digital approaches to the ancient world can produce. Bland, Chadwick, Ghey, and Haselgrove deserve the highest praise for their contributions to hoard studies and for advancing understanding of the complexities of Iron Age and Roman Britain.”
Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"Filled with maps, graphs, and images of both spectacular and not-so-spectacular hoards, this is clearly an ambitious piece of work and should be considered essential reading for anyone interested in the phenomenon."
Current Archaeology

"The online database is here analysed with informative maps, diagrams and tables, seeking answers to what, when, where and why."
British Archaeology

“[The volume] suggests that the evidence does not support a simple unitary explanation of the pattern of hoarding, but points to multiple possible motivations (e.g. economic, religious or ritual).”
New Testament Abstracts

"The presentation is excellent and the treatment of the subject is comprehensive and exhaustive...sets a model for other studies from other periods and for this alone the team who have produced this volume are to be thanked and congratulated."
Archaeologia Cambrensis About the Author Roger Bland was President of the British Numismatic Society from 2011 to 2016. He retired from the British Museum in 2015, where he was Keeper of the Department of Britain, Europe and Prehistory and Head of the Portable Antiquities Scheme. Before that he was curator of Roman coins at the Museum.

Dr Adrian Chadwick is a Teaching Fellow in Archaeology at the University of Bristol and was a Research Associate in the Hoarding Project. He holds a PhD from the University of Wales and his main research interests focus on landscape archaeology and aspects of Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Roman Britain and Europe, particularly field systems and land allotment, rural settlement, the archaeology of upland areas, and of coastal communities.

Dr Eleanor Ghey is Curator of Iron Age and Roman Coin Hoards at the British Museum, where she has been employed since 2007. She studied archaeology before training and working as a museum conservator until 2000. Her doctoral research was on Gallo-Roman temple sites and she has worked as a post-doctoral researcher on roundhouses in Wales and on the AHRC funded Iron Age and Roman coin hoards in Britain project (in collaboration with Leicester University). She has research interests in the Iron Age to Roman transition period and her current role involves recording coin hoards reported as Treasure under the Treasure Act 1996.

Colin Haselgrove is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Leicester. His research focuses on the British and European Iron Age, on early coinage and currencies and on the Iron Age to Roman transition in the north-west Europe.

Professor David Mattingly of the School of Archaeology & Ancient History, University of Leciester specializes in the archaeology of the Roman Empire with wide ranging research interests in Britain; Italy; Libya; Tunisia and Jordan, especially Roman Africa; the evolution of Roman military frontiers; and the study of native society beyond those frontiers.