For centuries, treasure hunters and archaeologists have been unearthing buried troves of Roman coins across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. If the reasons for their burial sometimes seem obvious, we have long ignored why so many of these fortunes had never been recovered by their owners.
Researchers Adrian-Daniel Stan and Cristian Gǎzda have mined one of the world’s largest databases of Roman monetary treasures. According to them, these “forgotten fortunes” buried in the ground could be footprints left during the darkest periods of the Roman Empire, details The Debrief.
Managed by the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and the University of the same city, the CHRE database lists more than 18,000 documented treasures and 7.5 million coins. But rather than questioning the reasons for the burial – escaping thieves or tax collectors, making religious offerings – Adrian-Daniel Stan and Cristian Gǎzda chose to explore a different angle: what prevented these treasures from being recovered?
Treasure hunt
In some cases, evidence suggests that these hiding places were only for temporary use: the pieces were in ceramics or leather pouches under houses or near hearths. But their owners were probably never able to come and get them.
Something must have gone wrong, the researchers conclude: concentrations of unrecovered treasure frequently coincide with major historical upheavals. For example, in AD 9, three Roman legions were wiped out by Germanic tribes in the Battle of Teutoburg Forest. Several monetary treasures were found near the battlefields. No doubt the soldiers had buried their belongings before going into battle and did not survive to recover them.
This was also the case in Brittany or around Vesuvius: each time, treasures were found at the sites of tribal wars, conquests or natural disasters. These lost treasures constitute a unique archaeological archive for understanding the ancient world.
Adrian-Daniel Stan and Cristian Gǎzda distinguish two very distinct phenomena behind these never-recovered treasures. This is either a practical concern – protecting one’s assets and evading taxes – or the treasures were buried in much more tragic circumstances: death, forced displacement, invasion, natural disaster. From this perspective, these buried treasures offer valuable insight into how ancient men faced insecurity and tried to survive in a violent, constantly changing world.
