Friday, 27 November 2015

Wick Hoard Mashup


The Mail account of a new hoard buried in or after the reign of Marcus Aurelius (c. 160) has to be one of the worst-written in recent years (Sarah Griffiths, ' Hoard of Roman coins dating back to Mark Antony are discovered in Welsh field ' MailOnline 26 November 2015). It should actually be about the Treasure inquest, because the hoard was found some time ago. The text of the article wanders round random topics in a wholly confused way, the ultimate in British portable antiquities dumbdown. Without the space-filling waffle the main facts are:
A hoard of silver coins [....] have [sic] been discovered in a Welsh field [...], the 91 coins have been hailed by history experts as 'a significant find' and could be worth 'tens of thousands of pounds.'[...] They were unearthed by two friends out walking in a field near the small village of Wick in South Wales [...] Consultant psychiatrist Dr Richard Annear, 65 and John Player, 43, came across the small pot containing the money, including three particularly old silver denarii. They reported it to curators who were able to remove a chunk of soil containing the delicate find safely. 
Except the photo of that "delicate pot" shows the archaeologists did not do a very good job of it. It is not explained how "walkers" found a buried pot with coins. Perhaps they have X-ray eyes that can see through soil. But no, the problem seems to be that the reporters today found it in some way embarrassing to mention they'd been using metal detectors. As Edward Besly explains:

 Posted on You Tube by Wales News TV




 

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