Derbyshire's Corieltavian cave coin cache

There has been a lot of media buzz recently over the discovery of a small hoard of 26 coins at Reynard's Cave at Dovedale in Derbyshire. The excitement has even spread to Lincolnshire (part of the Corieltavian heartlands) and I spent a while on the phone with the Lincolnshire Echo this afternoon discussing the finer points of our understanding of the Iron Age and why this find is significant to us.

Leaving aside the rather unusual find spot for the moment, the first thing that makes the hoard significant is the fact that of the 26 coins, 23 are examples of the later Iron Age inscribed coins of the Corieltavi, but 3 are Roman Republican silver denarii.  One of the holy grails of late Iron Age archaeology is concrete evidence of material and cultural relationships between Britain and the Roman Empire prior to the invasion of AD43.  The presence of pre-invasion coinage included with material of Iron Age date (as was discovered at the incredible shrine site at Hallaton in Leicestershire) always offers this exciting possibility.  The problem lies in the fact that Republican denarii, due to their silver content, circulated for a long time and can still be found in 2nd Century AD contexts.  It will therefore be interesting to see when these coins were minted (denarii began to be produced in 211BC) and how worn they are.  Iron Age coins fell out of production very soon after the Roman invasion, however, so there does seem to be a good chance that the hoard dates at the very least to the time of the invasion.

The second thing of interest is that the coins are Corieltavian, when Derbyshire was part of the tribal area of the neighbouring Brigantes.  This in itself shouldn't surprise us too much, as Corieltavian coins are often found in Yorkshire - indeed, it used to be thought that they were made by the Brigantes, with only 20th Century scholarship proving their East Midlands manufacture.  Nevertheless, the hoard is indicative of the fact that this group of Corieltavian coins had been obtained by a Brigantian, perhaps as part of a trade agreement, as payment for a service or as part of a gift exchange to seal an alliance.

Finally, we turn to the cave itself.  The finder apparently was sheltering from the rain in the cave and happened to have a small metal detector with him, which he used on the floor and found the first few coins.  This then led to an excavation which uncovered the rest.  The excavation is worth noting, as it was carried out using personnel from Operation Nightingale - a wonderful scheme to get wounded servicemen and women into archaeological fieldwork.  Its a great scheme and it seems like the thrill of archaeological discovery will long remain with those involved.  But why were the coins buried in a cave in the first place?  It may simply have been seen as a safe location, but there remains the possibility that the cave was a sanctuary of some sort, and the protection of more spiritual inhabitants of that dark and secluded place may have been sought.  Of course, 'ritual' is a dirty word in archaeology and such theories of sacred caves remain completely baseless without more evidence to support them.

The hoard is currently going through the treasure process, and will hopefully be acquired by Buxton Museum.  I for one can't wait to head across for a look at them in due course, and to see the results of the identification work on them which is only just beginning, and will hopefully begin to answer some of the questions we still have about how and when the hoard was constructed and deposited.

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Stories from The Collection #1 – ‘Rothwell boar‘ & ‘late Roman gold solidi’

This is the first in a series of posts in which I will examine some of my favourite objects held in the archaeology collections of The Collection: Art and Archaeology in Lincolnshire.

This first post was published in the Autumn 2011 issue of the ‘Lincolnshire Past and Present’ magazine, published by the Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology.

The Collection: Art and Archaeology in Lincolnshire (formerly known as the City and County Museum) holds the main public archaeological collections for Lincolnshire.  These are estimated to contain some 2 million objects, ranging from the unique to the commonplace.  It is a collection that is always growing, through systematic professional and amateur fieldwork and through casual finds – whether made by someone digging in their garden or searching with a metal detector.  This article will examine two recent, and rather interesting, acquisitions by the museum, which deal with both the beginning and the end of Roman Britain.

The Rothwell boar

Not all of the objects the museum acquires are fresh from the soil.  This chubby and cheerful looking bronze boar statuette was found at Rothwell, near Caistor in 1990, but acquired by the museum in 2007.

It dates to the 1^st Century BC / 1^st Century AD, and is one of those most interesting of archaeological finds – one that spans two cultures, in this case late Iron Age and early Roman Britain. 

The boar was a potent symbol of the Corieltavi tribe, who occupied Lincolnshire as well as most of the modern East Midlands.  The image of a bristly, aggressive boar appears on their silver coins as well as on the famous Witham Shield, discovered in the River Witham in 1826.

Other examples of boar statuettes are known in Britain, but they invariably tend to be of the spindly, aggressive type that is seen on the coinage, not the more rounded, naturalistic image we see here (for example, see the boars from Hounslow, now in the British Museum).  The prominent dorsal bristles and tusks still mark this boar out as a warrior’s totem, just one produced by a sculptor with a better sense of porcine proportions, or at least one who valued the realistic depiction of the boar over one focussing on its aggressive attributes.  Perhaps the style of the boar suggests that we are looking at a statuette made with the technical skill of Roman manufacture, but adhering to the belief system of the Corieltavi – the perfect example of the gap between two cultures being bridged.

This statuette is complete and free standing, so it was not made to be attached to a vessel or helmet, as other examples are thought to have been.  Perhaps it was produced to be a votive offering, to be deposited in water as the Corieltavi did at the Fiskerton site, or to reside in a shrine?

The boar was purchased by the museum with the kind assistance of The Art Fund and the V&A/MLA Purchase Grant Fund.

3 late Roman gold solidi from Nettleham

Coin 1 - Theodosius I

Coin 2 - Gratian

Coin 3 - Valentinian II

Traditionally, history textbooks present the end of Roman Britain as occurring in AD410.  In reality the situation is far more complicated, and far more interesting, than that.  The big question about the end of Roman Britain basically comes down to how long a Roman way of life continued after the withdrawal of Rome’s official support systems.

These three gold coins, all in superb condition, are of a denomination known as a solidus.  They were discovered together by a metal detector user and seem to have formed part of a small hoard, perhaps contained together in a bag.  The coins range from AD378 to AD392, and represent some of the last official coinage to enter Britannia.

The chronology of the later Roman Emperors is far more complicated than their predecessors of the 1^st and 2^nd Centuries, as these coins attest.  The coins were struck at a time when the eastern and western elements of the Roman Empire had split, and combinations of co-emperors and junior Emperors were common.

Coins 1 and 2 were produced at a time (AD378-AD383) when the Emperor Gratian was ruling the western Empire with his younger half brother Valentinian II, but had given control of the eastern Empire to Theodosius I, a general who had served in Britain.  They are struck in the names of Gratian and Theodosius I.

Coin 3 is slightly later in date (AD388-AD392), and was produced after Gratian had been killed, and when Theodosius I had named his son Arcadius co-Emperor in the east.  It is struck in Valentinian II’s name.

Despite the changes in Emperors, the coins all bear the same reverse image – that of two emperors holding a globe between them while an angel looks over them (this being the time of the Christian Emperors the winged figure is an angel rather than ‘victory’).  This image of peace and harmony was no doubt not taken too literally by the people living in an age of uncertainty and strife.

The coins were purchased by the museum with the kind assistance of The Art Fund and the Friends of Lincoln Museums and Art Gallery.

Other ‘Stories from The Collection’ posts

#1‘Rothwell boar’ and ‘late Roman solidi’

#2 ‘Roman Bacchus intaglio ring‘ & ‘Anglo Saxon cloisonné insect pendant’

#3 'Erotic Roman knife handle'

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