Ancient Treasures

by Brian Haughton

  The excavations at Hoxne found that the hoard had been contained inside a rectilinear feature, interpreted as being the decayed remains of a wooden chest that once held the objects. Other fragments recovered by the archaeologists, including box fittings such as hinges and locks, showed that the finds had been carefully organized into separate wooden boxes and fabric containers inside the larger oak chest. Such meticulous packing was one of the reasons why the objects were so well preserved when recovered. Archaeologists also uncovered an undated post hole, which may once have held a wooden post that served as a marker for the burial spot of the hoard.

  The fabulously rich contents of the Hoxne Hoard include 569 gold coins, 14,191 silver coins, and 24 bronze coins. The gold coins (all solidi of about 4.5 grams of gold per coin) date to the reigns of eight different emperors between Valentinian I (reigned AD 364–75) and Honorius (reigned AD 395–423). Most of the coins in the hoard were silver siliquae (small, thin, Roman silver coins produced from the fourth century onward), of which there were a staggering 14,212. There were also 60 silver miliarenses (large silver coins introduced by Constantine I) and 24 bronze nummi (low-value coins). The coins from the Hoxne Hoard provide extremely helpful dating evidence for its deposition; the oldest coin in the collection is a well-worn miliarensis of Constantine II (Roman emperor from AD 337–340) and the latest two siliquae of the usurper Constantine III (reigned AD 407–408). Thus the hoard must have been buried sometime after AD 407–408, and, although we do not know how long existing coins remained in circulation, it is unlikely to have been for more than perhaps 30 years, giving a probable date for the deposit of the hoard of not later than AD 450.

  Just as important for giving us information about the Hoxne Hoard are the mint marks stamped on many of the coins, which identify where in the Roman Empire they were minted. Fourteen different mints are represented in the Hoxne Hoard: Trier, Arles, and Lyon (in Gaul—modern France); Aquileia, Milan, Ravenna, and Rome (Italy); Siscia (in modern Croatia); Sirmium (in modern Serbia); Thessaloniki (Greece); and Constantinople, Nicomedia, Cyzicus, and Antioch (in modern Turkey).

  8.1. The gold body chain from the Hoxne Hoard. Image by Mike Peel www.mikepeel.net. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 2.5 on Wikipedia.

  The hoard contains 29 pieces of stunning gold jewelry: a gold body chain, six chain necklaces, three finger rings, and 19 bracelets. One of the bracelets bears the inscription “VTERE FELIX DOMINA IVLIANE” (“Use [this] happily lady Juliane”), which obviously indicates the name of the owner, Juliane. The body chain from the hoard is a fascinatingly rare object, which would have been passed over the shoulders and under the arms of the wearer, to be fixed in place by two clasps. There are two decorative clasps where the chains join; on the front one there is an amethyst surrounded by four garnets and four empty settings, which once probably held pearls (which have since decayed), and on the back a gold coin of Emperor Gratian (reigned AD 375–383) set into a gold frame. The small size of the Hoxne body chain suggests it would only fit a very slim young woman or an adolescent girl. Interestingly, the gold frame of the coin was a reused pendant, perhaps a century old when incorporated into the elaborate body chain, suggesting a family heirloom.

  8.2. Juliane bracelet from the Hoxne Hoard. Image by Fae. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 on Wikipedia.

  The collection of magnificent silver objects from the hoard consists of 78 exquisitely crafted spoons, 20 gilded and decorated ladles, four extremely rare pepper-pots, five bowls, two vases, nine toilet implements (toothpicks and ear-cleaners), and two padlocks from now-decayed small wooden caskets. A number of the spoons are decorated with a Christian monogram cross or Chi-Rho symbol, and one is engraved with the common Christian phrase “VIVAS IN DEO” (“May you live in God”). One of the gold necklaces also bears a Chi-Rho symbol. Such inscriptions must certainly attest to the Christian beliefs of their owners and add important evidence for Christianity in late Roman Britain.

  One set of 10 silver spoons from the hoard are inscribed with the personal name “Aurelius Ursicinus.” Although this is the most common name in the hoard, there is no evidence that this was the name of the owner of the objects. One of the most spectacular of the silver items is the handle in the form of a prancing tigress with niello (a black compound of sulfur with silver, lead, or copper, used for filling in engraved designs in silver or other metals) stripes and a long tail, which seems to have been purposely detached from a large vessel before deposition. But perhaps the most celebrated item in the whole hoard is known as the “Empress” pepper pot, a silver pepper or spice container of about 3 inches in height in the form of a hollow female half-figure. The figure’s clothing, jewelry, and intricate hairstyle are gilded and beautifully crafted. There is an internal disc in the base of the figure that can be rotated to be completely open for filling with pepper or other spices, partially open for sprinkling on food, or completely closed. Although initially believed to represent a Roman empress, specialists now believe that the “Empress” pepper-pot depicts a wealthy Roman aristocrat, perhaps even the Lady Juliane who owned the inscribed gold bracelet from the hoard. Pepper was an incredibly rare but popular commodity to the Romans; it was not grown anywhere in their Empire, so it had to be imported from India, across the Indian Ocean and up the Red Sea to Egypt, and then across the Mediterranean to Italy and Rome.

  As with many other hoards, including the Staffordshire Hoard (see Chapter 11), there is no evidence for contemporary buildings and certainly no rich Roman villas in the immediate vicinity of the location of the Hoxne Hoard. The closest Roman occupation in the area is at Scole, where a Roman Road known as Pye Road (the modern A140) crosses the River Waveney, about 2 miles to the northwest of the find spot. Five miles southwest of the location of the Hoxne Hoard there is evidence for a Roman settlement at Stoke Ash, also located on the Pye Road. Both Scole and Stoke Ash have been suggested as the location of the Villa Faustini, a site mentioned in the Antonine Itinerary; a written description began in the third century AD describing the Roman Empire’s major roads and stations upon them, which includes 15 routes in Britain. The Villa Faustini was obviously an estate owned by a man named Faustinus, but where exactly it was located and who Faustinus was are unknown.

  The Hoxne Hoard is not a completely isolated find. In 1781 laborers discovered a lead box close to the River Dove in Eye, about 2 miles to the south west of Hoxne. The box contained about 600 Roman gold coins dating between the reigns of Valens and Valentinian I (reigned together AD 364–375) and Honorius (AD 393–423). Unfortunately the coins have long since been scattered among various private collectors and are almost impossible to trace. Whether this hoard was related to the Hoxne cache or not, it does perhaps suggest something else. Dr. Peter Guest, senior lecturer in Roman archaeology at Cardiff University, and author of The Late Roman Gold and Silver Coins from the Hoxne Treasure, has noted the concentration of late Roman hoards in East Anglia and suggests in the book “an entrenched cultural tradition of deliberately and permanently abandoning precious metal in the ground.”1 In this hypothesis, hoards in the area would have been votive deposits, although Guest has also suggested an alternative theory that argues that the Hoxne Hoard was deposited because the objects in it were used as part of a gift-exchange system, which broke down when the Romans left Britain.

  Another possibility is that the Hoxne Hoard represents the loot from a robbery, concealed by the thief, who was, for whatever reason, unable to return to recover it. However, the simplest explanation for the presence of the Hoxne Hoard is that it was deposited by a wealthy family in an isolated spot for safekeeping after AD 407 in uncertain, even dangerous times as Roman soldiers were departing from Britain. Perhaps the family had to leave Britain in a hurry during this turbulent period, which is why they were not able to retrieve their treasure—or at least not all of it. Researchers have noted that some common types of Roman jewelry are absent from the hoard, and the types of large silver tablew
are objects found in the Mildenhall Treasure (discussed later in this chapter), which a wealthy Roman family would surely have owned, were also missing. Fabulously rich as it is, the Hoxne Hoard may only represent part of an even greater treasure.

  The Mildenhall Treasure

  Discovered in Suffolk 1943, at the height of WWII, the hoard of objects known as the Mildenhall Treasure is a collection of late-Roman silver tableware perhaps unequalled in the Roman Empire. The cache of 34 exquisitely decorated items was acquired by the British Museum in 1946 but little is known of its ownership or its origins. Even the treasure’s discovery has an element of mystery, exemplified by Roald Dahl’s short story about the hoard, first published in 1946. With such an air of uncertainty surrounding the discovery and origins of the hoard, it is perhaps not surprising that tales have grown up questioning its Romano-British origin and even suggesting that it had been secretly smuggled into Britain from the Mediterranean.

  On a freezing cold January day in 1943 Gordon Butcher was deep plowing a field belonging to a farmer named Fred Rolfe, at West Row, 2 miles northwest of the market town of Mildenhall in Suffolk, when he hit a large metal dish. Knowing he had found something out of the ordinary but unsure of what to do, Butcher went to get Sydney Ford, an agricultural engineer from whom he had rented the plowing equipment and someone who also happened to collect local antiquities. The two men excitedly dug together as the snow fell and had soon unearthed a large number of objects, including dishes, bowls, and spoons. They then put the objects into a sack and carried it to Ford’s workshops at West Row, where Ford carefully examined each piece and Ford’s workmen helped to straighten pieces that had become bent. After extensive cleaning Ford put various items of the collection of what he believed to be pewter on display on his sideboard. The man who first discovered the artifacts, Gordon Butcher, now drops out of the story for a while, though whether he was paid off, as stories circulating at the time suggest, has never been proven.

  Sometime in 1946 a Buckinghamshire doctor and amateur antiquarian named Dr. H.A. Fawcett visited Ford, from whom he had bought antiquities in the past, and managed to view the items from the hoard. Realizing the importance of the objects, Fawcett persuaded Ford to loan him a few items to take to the British Museum for analysis. Experts at the British Museum subsequently identified the objects as Roman silver, and Fawcett persuaded Ford to declare the find to the authorities. The treasure was then confiscated by the police, who launched an inquiry into the matter. In the summer of 1946 an inquest was held, and on July 1st the hoard was declared treasure trove and became the property of the Crown. Although newspapers published articles quoting the value of the hoard at a huge (for the time) £50,000 ($76,523), Ford and Butcher were only given a reward of £2,000 to share between them ($3,061). This was far from the full market value, perhaps because Ford had not reported the find correctly and had also delayed doing so for a long period after its discovery. After the inquest the British Museum acquired the treasure, and it remains there to this day.

  Roald Dahl, the English author of James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and many others, wrote a short story about the hoard, “The Mildenhall Treasure,” which was first published (under the title “He Plowed up $1,000,000”) in the Saturday Evening Post magazine in the United States in 1946. After reading about the story in a newspaper, Dahl visited Mildenhall and apparently interviewed a number of people involved in the case, including the plowman, Gordon Butcher, to whom he later sent a check for half of the money he made from selling the piece to the Saturday Evening Post. The story was later published in Dahl’s short story collection The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More.

  The Mildenhall Treasure consists of 34 silver items, including serving platters, plates, dishes, bowls, goblets, ladles, and spoons. Some of the pieces are spectacularly decorated. The Great Dish, as it has become known, is without doubt the most spectacular and well known of all the pieces in the Mildenhall Treasure; in fact, it could be said to symbolize the treasure itself. The object is a circular platter (serving dish) almost 2 feet in diameter and weighing more than 18 pounds. Its beautifully executed relief decoration divided into three concentric zones, the outer of which features Bacchic revellers, including Bacchus himself, Hercules, the goat-footed god Pan, several dancing Maenads (the female followers of Bacchus), and Satyrs. The narrow inner decorative band illustrates Nereids (sea-nymphs), Tritons, and other mythical and natural marine creatures; and the face of a bearded sea-god (Neptune or Oceanus) with dolphins in his hair stares out from the center of the dish. Two smaller plates are decorated in the same style, one showing Pan playing his pipes and a Maenad playing the double flute, and the other decorated with a dancing Satyr and a dancing Maenad; these plates must surely have been made in the same workshop as the Great Dish.

  8.3. The Great Dish from the Mildenhall Treasure in the British Museum. Image by JMaill. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 on Wikipedia.

  A number of the beautifully crafted flanged (projecting flat rim, collar, or rib on an object) bowls in the collection are also decorated with such Bacchic scenes. One particularly attractive example shows a mixture of Bacchic imagery and both mythical and real animals. An exquisite covered flanged silver bowl has a high-domed lid (actually made later than the bowl) decorated with Bacchic masks between scenes of Centaurs attacking wild animals. The lid also has a knob formed from a small statuette of a young seated Triton blowing a conch shell. Fascinatingly, this third-century AD bowl is the oldest in the Mildenhall Treasure, and the only object in the hoard whose area of manufacture (Gaul [modern France]) is known for certain. The eight spoons discovered in the Mildenhall Treasure represent three (or perhaps four) groups or sets, why the owner did not deposit the complete sets with the hoard is not known. Three of these exquisitely shaped spoons are the only obvious evidence for Christian beliefs in the hoard, having the Christian Chi-Rho symbol inscribed between Alpha and Omega (the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, an appellation of Christ) in their bowls. Another two spoons are inscribed with personal names; one reads “PAPITTEDO VIVAS” (“long life to Papittedus”), the other “PASCENTIA VIVAS” (“long life to Pascentia”). This evidence for Christianity in the hoard contrasts with the pagan nature of the decoration on many of the objects, especially the Bacchic scenes.

  In terms of dating the Mildenhall Treasure, we are not lucky enough to possess the late-Roman coins present in the Hoxne Hoard and a number of other Roman hoards. In the absence of coins we have to rely on stylistic similarities to other Roman artifacts to date the cache. The style and decoration of the artifacts point to a fourth-century AD date for the Mildenhall Treasure, which is supported by the handful of Christian inscriptions, compared to the more predominantly pagan character of the decoration on the objects. This is what would be expected, as Christianity was slowly gaining influence in Roman Britain in the fourth century, and signs of the new religion would have co-existed with the pagan beliefs of the majority of the population. It has been suggested that the owner of the Mildenhall Treasure was a wealthy Christian, perhaps one Lupicinus, a Christian Magister militum (master of soldiers), a high-level commander who was sent to Britain in AD 360 by Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate to defend the frontier from attacks by the Picts (from eastern and northern Scotland) and the Scots (from Ireland). Lupicinus was recalled to Gaul two years later and arrested, and it has been suggested that he or members of his family may have buried the Mildenhall Treasure for safekeeping in Britain when he left. If the treasure did indeed belong to Lupicinus, then one can assume he brought it with him when he came to Britain, so the Gaulish origin of the covered bowl may make some sense. However, why was the treasure deposited in a field apparently in the middle of nowhere?

  But had the field where the Mildenhall Treasure was found always been empty? In 1932 traces of what had probably been a small, fourth-century Roman villa were discovered 30 yards from the find spot of the hoard. Finds from t
he site included pottery and the remains of a hypocaust (heating) system. Could the Mildenhall Treasure be connected to the occupants of this villa? Archaeological work in the area of West Row since that time has uncovered evidence of late-Roman settlement in the form of features such as ditches, pits, and post holes, and finds such as ceramic building material, pottery, copper alloy coins, and animal bone. At Beck Row, to the northeast of West Row, a large Roman barn and maltings (malt house) were discovered, signifying considerable agricultural activity in the area. This evidence of Roman activity in the vicinity of the finds pot of the Mildenhall Treasure certainly shows that it was not an isolated field during the Roman period. Nevertheless, so far there is no evidence for the grand residence that would be expected for the owner of such rich objects as those in the Mildenhall Treasure.

  At the time of the 1946 inquest into the treasure general opinion was that the objects found by Butcher and Ford were of much too high a quality to have originated or have been used in provincial Roman Britain. There were even theories that the treasure had originally been looted from sites in Italy or North Africa during WWII and flown to the U.S. military airbase at Mildenhall, where it was then buried close to the base’s perimeter, which is indeed in the very area where the hoard was supposedly discovered. There is no evidence to prove or disprove this story, though are we to believe that both Butcher and Ford were involved in this conspiracy? Anyway, more recent discoveries of Roman hoards such as the Hoxne Hoard and the Water Newton Treasure show that high-quality Roman gold and silver were in use in Roman Britain, and there is no reason to doubt the same for the Mildenhall Treasure. Despite this fact, however, the circumstances of the discovery of the Mildenhall Treasure leave many questions unanswered.