File:2018 T799 Lacon hoard - an example of cut half siliqua (possibly Valens, wt = 0.66g) (FindID 924291-1051157).jpg

Richard Abdy, Richard Hobbs and Roger White

1 AR denarius, 79 AR siliquae and hacksilver to AD 402 BM ref.: 2018 T799 PAS: LVPL-9CF012

Discussion of the Coins

The closing date of the latest coin is very deceptive here since for such a small hoard group we cannot expect to find the very rare siliquae issues post-dating AD 402. (As seen for example in the far larger Hoxne and Coleraine Treasures). The Wem coins are mostly in a wretched condition and over a third are of uncertain mint and/ or issue. About half the period-identifiable coins are of the joint reign of Arcadius and Honorius (AD 395-402) and putting Wem in the ultimate category of Guest's classification of siliquae hoards.<a href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> Clipping is at its most severe and there is evidence that we have reached such a late stage in the clipped siliquae hoarding process that attempts to retain the coin like appearance during the reductions have been abandoned and we have 'hacksilver coins'. I.e. many are halved and quartered and one specimen is folded (almost rolled into a tube). This hacking down process is rough and ready with much evidence of cut marks from the knife. One of these halved coins is an old, well-worn denarius made in the first century and pressed back into service as a piece of bullion. The presence of a denarius in a hoard mainly comprised of siliquae is close to unique in Britain although it is a different story beyond the limes.<a href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> The Patching hoard also contained a denarius - although this very late gold and silver group is a special case with a highly unusual composition.<a href="#_ftn3">[3]</a> Patching, probably deposited in the late AD 460s did contain roughly as many small hacksilver pieces as coins but none of the coins were themselves hacked up (though a few were broken). Patching did contain mid-fifth century imported siliquae which had not been clipped and perhaps that practise had ended by the time of the assemblage of the coins.<a href="#_ftn4">[4]</a> Wem may well have gone beyond the end of clipping too, but being two hundred miles north of Patching (which is near Worthing on the Sussex coast) and deep inland it was perhaps out of reach of later imported coinage from the near Continent. Wem responded to the times differently since many of the siliquae which remained unclipped were simply chopped up and its halved and quartered coins could be seen as part of the increasing trend over time towards smaller and smaller pieces of hacksilver. With Wem we clearly have a siliquae hoard at a very late transitional stage to a bullion economy.

<a href="#_ftnref1">[1]</a> Group 6 in P. Guest, 'Hoards from the End of Roman Britain', in CHRB X (London 1997), 411-23. Guest uses the summaries listed in the 'Silver hoards' section of RIC X.

<a href="#_ftnref2">[2]</a> E.g. Graben-Neudorf, Germany and Heilbronn-Böckingen, Germany (RIC X, p.cxx-cxxi). Also Childeric's tomb at Tournai is another famous example of such 'curated' coinage. See A. Harris 2003: Byzantium, Britain & the West, the Archaeology of Cultural Identity AD 400-650 (Stroud 2003), 81-2. Within the empire, the great Beaurains Treasure seems to be a special case - a packet of worn denarii present in the Constantinian hoard were interpreted as loot taken from Barbaricum: P. Bastien, & C. Metzger, Le Tresor de Beaurains (dit d'Arras), (Wetteren 1977).

<a href="#_ftnref3">[3]</a> J. Orna-Ornstein, 'PATCHING, WEST SUSSEX, 23 AV and 27 AR (mixed Roman and pseudo-Roman) 2 gold finger rings and 54 silver fragments to c. AD 465' in CHRB XII, (Wetteren 2009), 389-92

<a href="#_ftnref4">[4]</a> R. Abdy, 'After Patching: imported and recycled coinage in 5th-6th century Britain' in: Cook, B. and Williams, G. (eds.) Money and History in the North Sea World (essays in honour of Marion Archibald), (Leiden, 2006), 75-98. Also R. Abdy, 'Patching and Oxborough: the latest coin hoards from Roman Britain or the first early medieval hoards from England?' in CHRB Vol. XII (Wetteren, 2009), 393-5.

Summary:

Denarius

Flavian (AD 69-81), 1

Siliquae