A longstanding archaeological riddle involves the phenomenon of coin hoarding in the ancient Roman Empire—why were massive stashes of wealth often buried, and seemingly never retrieved?
Now scholars may finally be closer to knowing the answer, according to new findings published in the Journal of Ancient History and Archaeology. The research presents evidence drawn from several case studies that help to build the argument that many ancient Roman coin hoards were buried during periods of political upheaval, war, or other catastrophic periods of change, revealing that the recovery of these caches may not have always been practical, or even possible.
The Enigma of Roman Coin Hoards
For many centuries, treasure hunters, archaeologists, and others have made remarkable discoveries of buried hoards of Roman coins across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Although the reasons why coin hoards were buried are sometimes fairly obvious, the real mystery for scholars throughout time has to do with why these troves—often representing significant amounts of wealth—remained unrecovered.
To answer this question, Babeş-Bolyai University researchers Adrian-Daniel Stan and Cristian Gǎzda leveraged one of the world’s largest databases on Roman coin hoards, and based on the data the pair reviewed, they suggest that these “forgotten fortunes” entombed within the earth can be viewed as the fingerprints left behind by some of the darkest periods in the Roman Empire.
A Deeper Look at Roman Coin Hoards
Managed by the Ashmolean Museum and the University of Oxford, the Coin Hoards of the Roman Empire (CHRE) project is an extensive database comprised of more than 18,000 documented hoards.
With data on more than 7.5 million coins, the project’s database provided Gǎzda and Stan precisely the kind of information they needed to contrast discoveries of large troves of wealth buried throughout the ancient Roman world.
However, rather than focusing their study on why Romans hid their valuables in the first place, which has long remained the focus in past archaeological research, the team decided to try to better understand what prevented their reclamation.
Coin hoards were buried for a variety of reasons. Sometimes merchants would hide their wealth to conceal it from thieves or tax collectors. In other instances, treasure caches might have been buried for religious reasons, such as offerings or as part of rituals.
In at least some instances, circumstantial clues help to illustrate that the hoards had been buried in what were intended as temporary hiding places, sometimes contained within ceramic vessels, bags or pouches made from leather, or within other kinds of containers.
Such discoveries have often been located below the flooring in houses or hearths—locations where it was likely expected that they would have been retrieved by their owners. When these hoards remained buried, it likely means something went wrong.
Aligning with this “catastrophic” interpretation, Gǎzda and Stan relied on spatial and chronological analyses of the CHRE database, which revealed clusters of unrecovered hoard discoveries that frequently coincided with major upheavals that included wars, invasions, and natural disasters known in the historic record.
The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest
One example the research team focused on occurred in A.D. 9, where a trio of Roman legions was obliterated by Germanic tribes. This event, known as the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, aligned with several coin hoards found around a battlefield area at Kalkriese, as well as the nearby Roman fort of Haltern; a pattern implying that soldiers and civilians had likely buried their valuables, and never had opportunities to recover them.
Similar patterns were observed in Britain, where concentrations of hoards matched with periods of tribal warfare, as well as the beginning of the Roman conquest in A.D. 43, and other instances. Further south, another concentration appears around Mount Vesuvius just after the devastating eruption that occurred in A.D. 79, which buried Pompeii beneath a blanket of volcanic ash.
Still other examples of hoard “clusters” emerge from the data in areas that include the Danube frontier during the Dacian Wars, and amid invasions that were prevalent during the crisis period the Roman Empire underwent during the third century.
Overall, the patterns reveal that these unrecovered hoards provide a unique archaeological record of upheaval and insecurity in the ancient world that helps to complement and verify written history and other archaeological research.
A Tale of Two Phenomena
Significantly, Gǎzda and Stan observe that there are two distinctive phenomena that emerge from these failures to recover buried treasure. One involved the practical concern of protecting one’s wealth, and avoidance of taxation, while the other involved more tragic circumstances like death, displacement due to battle, invasion, natural disaster, or other dramatic periods of change.
Through this lens of understanding, the buried coin hoards become more than just intriguing discoveries of lost valuables from ancient times: they offer a unique record of some of history’s most unpredictable forces, and a deeper perspective on the ways humans coped with insecurity while trying to survive and cope with changes in the ancient world.
The team’s study, “Why Did They Not Recover the Hoards? Insecurity in the Roman Empire,” appeared in the Journal of Ancient History and Archaeology.
Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.