1992, THE HOXNE HOARD IS DISCOVERED BY ERIC LAWES

Today, The Grandma has received the visit of one of her closest friends, Joseph de Ca'th Lon. Joseph loves History and Archaeology and they have been talking about the Hoxne Hoard, the largest hoard of late Roman silver and gold discovered by Eric Lawes in Suffok, England, on a day like today in 1992.

The Hoxne Hoard is the largest hoard of late Roman silver and gold discovered in Britain, and the largest collection of gold and silver coins of the fourth and fifth centuries found anywhere within the former Roman Empire. It was found by Eric Lawes, a metal detectorist in the village of Hoxne in Suffolk, England in 1992.

The hoard consists of 14,865 Roman gold, silver, and bronze coins and approximately 200 items of silver tableware and gold jewellery.

The objects are now in the British Museum in London, where the most important pieces and a selection of the rest are on permanent display. 

In 1993, the Treasure Valuation Committee valued the hoard at £1.75 million (about £3.79 million in 2021).

The hoard was buried in an oak box or small chest filled with items in precious metal, sorted mostly by type, with some in smaller wooden boxes and others in bags or wrapped in fabric. Remnants of the chest and fittings, such as hinges and locks, were recovered in the excavation. The coins of the hoard date it after AD 407, which coincides with the end of Britain as a Roman province.

The owners and reasons for burial of the hoard are unknown, but it was carefully packed and the contents appear consistent with what a single very wealthy family might have owned. It is likely that the hoard represents only a part of the wealth of its owner, given the lack of large silver serving vessels and of some of the most common types of jewellery.

The Hoxne Hoard contains several rare and important objects, such as a gold body-chain and silver-gilt pepper-pots (piperatoria), including the Empress pepper pot. The hoard is also of particular archaeological significance because it was excavated by professional archaeologists with the items largely undisturbed and intact. The find helped to improve the relationship between metal detectorists and archaeologists, and influenced a change in English law regarding finds of treasure.

More information: Heritage Suffolk

The hoard was discovered in a farm field southwest of the village of Hoxne in Suffolk on 16 November 1992. Tenant farmer Peter Whatling had lost a hammer and asked his friend Eric Lawes, a retired gardener and amateur metal detectorist, to help look for it.

While searching the field with his metal detector, Lawes discovered silver spoons, gold jewelry, and numerous gold and silver coins. After retrieving a few items, he and Whatling notified the landowners (Suffolk County Council) and the police without attempting to dig out any more objects.

The following day, a team of archaeologists from the Suffolk Archaeological Unit carried out an emergency excavation of the site. The entire hoard was excavated in a single day, with the removal of several large blocks of unbroken material for laboratory excavation. The area was searched with metal detectors within a radius of 30 metres  from the find spot. Peter Whatling's missing hammer was also recovered and donated to the British Museum.

The hoard was concentrated in a single location, within the completely decayed remains of a wooden chest. The objects had been grouped within the chest; for example, pieces such as ladles and bowls were stacked inside one another, and other items were grouped in a way consistent with being held within an inner box. Some items had been disturbed by burrowing animals and ploughing, but the overall amount of disturbance was low. It was possible to determine the original layout of the artefacts within the container, and the existence of the container itself, due to Lawes' prompt notification of the find, which allowed it to be excavated in situ by professional archaeologists.

The excavated hoard was taken to the British Museum. The discovery was leaked to the press, and the Sun newspaper ran a front-page story on 19 November, alongside a picture of Lawes with his metal detector. The full contents of the hoard and its value were still unknown, yet the newspaper article claimed that it was worth £10 million.

In response to the unexpected publicity, the British Museum held a press conference at the museum on 20 November to announce the discovery. Newspapers lost interest in the hoard quickly, allowing British Museum curators to sort, clean, and stabilise it without further disruption from the press. The initial cleaning and basic conservation was completed within a month of its discovery.

A coroner's inquest was held at Lowestoft on 3 September 1993, and the hoard was declared a treasure trove, meaning that it was deemed to have been hidden with the intention of being recovered at a later date. Under English common law, anything declared as such belongs to the Crown if no one claims title to it. The customary practice at the time was to reward anyone who found and promptly reported a treasure trove with money equivalent to its market value, the money being provided by the national institution that wished to acquire the treasure.

In November 1993, the Treasure Trove Reviewing Committee valued the hoard at £1.75 million (about £3.79 million in 2023), which was paid to Lawes as finder of the treasure, and he shared it with farmer Peter Whatling. The Treasure Act 1996 was later enacted, allowing the finder, tenant, and landowner to share in any reward.

More information: The Guardian

The Roman Empire was very, very much like us.
They lost their moral core,
their sense of values in terms of who they were.
And after all of those things converged together,
they just went right down the tubes very quickly.

Ben Carson