Source: volksfreund.de
What do you think should be the size of the largest hoard of Roman coins found in the history of mankind? A hundred coins, maybe two hundred or about a thousand? In fact, the scale of the treasure that took first place is much larger, and we will learn what it is from this article.
The largest treasure, which consisted entirely of Roman gold coins, was found on September 9, 1993 in the German city of Trier. This oldest city with a rich history was founded in 15 BC by the Roman emperor Octavian Augustus, and then it was called Augusta Treverorum.
The city of Trier in 1572 (engraving). Source: wikipedia.org
But let’s return to the treasure itself. As usual, the treasure was found during construction work. The coins were in a bronze cauldron and were wrapped in a leather bag.
Source: volksfreund.de
Just look at this huge pile of coins, but how many are there? After the discovery of the find, all the coins were counted, and they counted as many as 2,750 pieces. All aureuses were made of 980 gold, and their total weight was about 18.5 kilograms.
Source: volksfreund.de
The large spread in the time of coin production (from 63 to 196) suggests that the money was accumulated over a very long period of time, perhaps even by several generations of the same family. But the owners of the treasure were never able to use their savings.
Source: volksfreund.de
Interesting fact. After the discovery of the treasure, one searcher named Eric Yechner somehow got wind of the find and at night made his way to the place where it was found. While everyone was sleeping, a man with a metal detector discovered the remaining parts of the bronze cauldron and another 560 gold Roman coins inside it.
Source: volksfreund.de
What do you think the treasure hunter did? He reported the find to the local authorities and received a bonus for this in the amount of 20,000 Deutsch Marks, which at the average annual exchange rate of 1993 amounted to more than 11,000,000 rubles. Not bad, you’ll agree.
P.S. The article was prepared based on materials from the Violity online auction forum (violity.com).
