1,800-year-old 'piggy banks' full of Roman-era coins unearthed in French village
1,800-year-old 'piggy banks' full of Roman-era coins unearthed in French village
Should have put them in stocks instead. Didn't anyone tell the Romans about inflation? Those coins are basically worthless now smh
I like it better when they are called hordes.
The article said it was more likely "long term savings" but doesn't say how much money it represents in relative terms, just an estimate of the number of coins. So it's not clear if this is capitalistic wealth hoarding or an average person's retirement fund.
Well it was 1800 years ago so I'm pretty sure capitalism has nothing to do with it at all. But that's just what we used to call finds like these in archeology. Coin hordes. These kind of finds usually correlate pretty strongly with times of strife
They belonged to Euclio. He fiercely hid his pots of gold, because he was an old miser who feared thieves. So, his daughter got pregnant? WHO CARES, THE GOLD MATTERS MORE! ...no, wait, that was in Athens, not in Gallia. (Not even. It's from a comedy.)
The first hoard held an estimated 83 pounds (38 kilograms) of coins, which "corresponds to approximately 23,000 to 24,000 coins,"
38kg/24k coins ≃ 1.5g/coin. If this was from Rome they'd be most likely quinarii and/or denarii, but I'm not sure if the Gallic Empire issued the same or equivalent coins. Either way, they're silver, based on colour; bronze or copper would be greener by now.
This reinforces the hypothesis it's some sort of piggy-bank. A rich person trying to hide their stash in times of insecurity would do it with solidi (gold) instead, as it's better for long-term storage. Those amphorae probably belonged to someone who worked hard to get some money, dropping a coin or two each time. Because, you know... you'll get old, your work won't give you as many fruits as before, but you still gotta eat.
The fact the amphorae were found hints the person passed away before they could reach old age. Or that they were really, really good at storing money. Either way, I hope someone spared two of those for their eyes, to pay Charon's ride.
if this was some decades before I'd guess antoniniani too, but by 280~310 those were mostly bronze too.
Two jugs, 38kg and 50kg of coins! Holy shit, that's thousands of them. So jelly. Nice that they were found by actual archeologists. Hopefully we'll see the results in musea soon.
Even the silver alone is valuable. 88kg 1600 euros per kg = 140 000 euros.
ex nummis
...were you hidden in one of those, too?
Damn, yet another generation that could afford to save...