Silver Denarii Hoard in Germany

On September 22, the biggest Roman coin treasure ever found in Germany from the time of Emperor Hadrian, consisting of 934 silver denarii, went on display at the LVR-LandesMuseum Bonn, one of the nation’s oldest museums.

A year ago, amateur archaeologist Oliver Riedl discovered several of the coins in a field in Wesseling, Germany, and realized he had stumbled upon something much larger when his metal detector was beeping up a storm. Riedl called the authorities, and a group of experts uncovered the rest of the hoard.

The newest coin was minted in A.D. 124 or 125, which falls in the middle of Hadrian’s reign (A.D. 117-138). However, some are much older. One was minted in 148 B.C., during the era of the Roman Republic, while others date to between A.D. 69 and 96, when the Flavian emperors Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian ruled the empire. Together, the coins span nearly 300 years of Roman history.

Experts speculate that the collection was buried in the second quarter of the 2nd century A.D. “It’s very likely that someone wanted to keep this money safe. After all, banks didn’t exist back then,” says Erich Classen, a state archaeologist.

Treasure troves from ancient Roman times are not uncommon, but few from the 2nd century are as extensive as this one. It’s the fifth largest in the world from that period.

To determine the hoard’s historical value, scholars considered that a common soldier in the Roman legion earned 300 denarii per year, with about half withheld for food and equipment. At that rate, a soldier would have had to save all of his disposable income for roughly six years to accumulate the coins.

Classen said it is unknown why the cache had not been retrieved. “Perhaps the owner died before that could happen, without being able to pass on the knowledge about the coins.”