Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:
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An excavation in Senon, France, has revealed three amphorae filled with ancient Roman coins that had been buried under the floor of what was once a living room.
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This region of France was once populated by a Celtic tribe known as the Mediomatrici, who were eventually conquered by the Romans.
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The way the amphorae were buried so close to ground level suggests that they should be accessible for storage or withdrawal.
There was (obviously) no such thing as online banking 1,700 years ago. While the ancient Romans adopted early banking systems from ancient Greece, the most convenient way to put away cash that would have simply been transferred to a savings account over a thousand years later was to keep it in a vessel that was later buried.
Wherever the Roman Empire spread, its customs came with it. The empire and all its wealth spread across France, and archaeologists from the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) have now unearthed three clay amphorae full of coins. Found at a site in Senon, northeastern France, makeshift piggy banks were buried in a pit under the lime concrete floor of what was probably someone’s living room. The research team found more than 40,000 coins, weighing about 183 pounds in total. Some had been deposited in the necks of the jugs even after the containers were buried.
“Contrary to what one might think at first glance, it is not certain that these are ‘treasures’ that were hidden in a period of insecurity,” said numismatist Vincent Geneviève, who studies ancient currency, in an INRAP statement. “Many other explanations are possible, and these deposits should instead be seen as a snapshot of complex, medium- and long-term planned monetary management within a household or administration, able to make deposits and withdrawals at different intervals.”
At the time, Senon was populated by the Mediomatrici tribe, whose name translates as “middle mother” and is probably a reference to the middle goddess of the three mothers worshiped in northwestern Europe during the Roman era. These Celtic people, or Gauls, lived in the region during the Gallic Wars, when Julius Caesar’s forces conquered parts of Belgium, France and Switzerland between 57 and 50 BC. Caesar fought the Gauls when a subgroup known as the Helvetii (from what is now Switzerland) began to migrate and clash with Roman allies. According to Caesar’s account of the Gallic Wars, the Celts near the Rhine (probably including the Mediomatricians) clashed with the Germanic tribes.
The vessels and hoards of coins found by the researcher date much later, around the end of year 3.st until 4 earlyth Geneviève found approximately 23,000 to 24,000 coins in the first amphora (with a total weight of 83 pounds) and 18,000 to 19,000 in the second amphora (with a total weight of 110 pounds). Only three coins remained in the third bowl.
Researchers who found coins stuck to the outer face of a vessel realized that they were added to the hoard before the pit was filled with sediment. The Mediomatrici settlement where the vessels were found had been burned to the ground in 4th century and rebuilt, only to be reduced to ashes again, and these artifacts were there before the fires. This can only mean that they were there before the Roman conquest.
As the hoard of coins was buried between 280 and 310 AD, it is believed that they may be associated with the Roman military occupation of Senon – it is not clear whether they belonged to Roman or Mediomatrican warriors. The artifacts were buried at a time when urban growth began to trigger a change in building practices and materials, and living space as a result was made of limestone bricks (limestone was an abundant resource in this part of France at the time). The rooms are separated by brick walls, with several pits that may have been latrines or storage spaces. What they were actually used for will be determined through laboratory analysis.
Senon seems to have been heavily influenced by his Roman conquerors. The coin impressions appear stylistically Roman, and the ruins at the site reflect a wealthy city with a public square, courtyards, temples, baths, and even a theater. Its inhabitants may have been artists or merchants. INRAP officials, therefore, do not believe that they were in a hurry to bury these coins because of the impending disaster. The fact that the tops of the amphorae were almost at ground level indicates that they must have been easily accessible for storage or withdrawal.
“Their exceptional nature lies less in the discovery of a large amount of coins (about thirty coin hoards are known in the Meuse department alone) than in the possibility of so precisely documenting their context of deposition,” said Geneviève, “which is rare.”
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