Did you hear the one about the English farm hand who dug up Roman gold and treasure? It happened.
On November 16, 1992, 1 1/2 miles southwest of Hoxne in Suffolk, England the largest Roman hoard of gold was discovered. On this fall day, Peter Whatling was perhaps knocking mud from the tires of a tractor or trying to bend a piece of a plow with his hammer. Somehow he dropped it, misplaced it, forgot about it, or whatever. When he realized that his hammer was missing, he asked Eric Lawes, a friend, to help him look for it. Eric was a metal detectorist, and he agreed to help.
Hoxne is a village in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk, England, about five miles (8 km) east-southeast of Diss, Norfolk and 1⁄2 mile (800 m) south of the River Waveney. The parish is irregularly shaped, covering the villages of Hoxne, Cross Street and Heckfield Green.
The two detectives were searching for a hammer, at most a $12 to $35 item at your local hardware store. Friend Lawes must have been happy to have found the hammer when his metal detector signaled. Lawes, while searching the field with his metal detector, discovered silver spoons, gold jewelry, and numerous gold and silver coins. Having retrieved a few of the relics they called the farm owner and then the police. Nothing else was disturbed below the ground.
The following day archaeologists did what is called an emergency excavation. When gold and silver are involved, I imagine it does constitute an emergency. The hoard they had discovered was in a single spot. There was evidence from the location of the precious stuff that it had been contained in a wooden chest of some sort - bits of the wood debris' location were cataloged. The area was scoured out for about 93 feet in radius. Whatling's hammer was found along with Roman treasure. Having been donated to a national museum in England, the hammer, now quite famous, was also placed along side the hoard.
In November 1993, the Treasure Trove Reviewing Committee valued the hoard at £1.75 million (about £3.59 million in 2019), which was paid to Lawes as finder of the treasure, and he shared it with farmer Peter Whatling. In 1994, an excavation of the same area yielded 335 items dating to the Roman period, mostly coins.
Theretofore, the law in England was that any loot discovered which was found in a way that suggested it had been buried with the intent of someone's return for collection had to be turned over entirely to the government. As a result of this huge find, the law was changed with passage of the Treasure Act of 1996. Whatling, Lawes, and the owner per the new law, were paid in fiat the estimated value of the trove - this amounted to about 1.3 million U.S. dollars each! Not only had the two friends discovered the largest gold hoard ever, they were the impetus for the law being reviewed and changed. No doubt, the fact that they were honest and revealed the hoard must have made the legalists consider the future bounty that could be cloistered in national museums if an equal value of fiat were dished out to the excavators. After all, gold is a store of value, and I am sure the government understood this.
The final tally:
The hoard is mainly made up of gold and silver coins and jewelry, amounting to a total of 3.5 kilograms (7.7 lb) of gold and 23.75 kilograms (52.4 lb) of silver
From Wikipedia:
569 gold coins (solidi)
14,272 silver coins, comprising 60 miliarenses and 14,212 siliquae
24 bronze coins (nummi)
29 items of jewelry in gold
98 silver spoons and ladles
A silver tigress, made as a handle for a vessel
4 silver bowls and a small dish
1 silver beaker
1 silver vase or juglet
4 pepper pots, including the "Empress" Pepper Pot
Toiletry items such as toothpicks
2 silver locks from the decayed remains of wooden or leather caskets
Traces of various organic materials, including a small ivory pyxis
For more information about this fabulous find, see https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-other-artifacts/hoxne-hoard-0010494
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