This is so fucking cool, sometimes I wish I lived in Europe just so I can find ancient stuff like this. Have you ever found your own roman coins, euroanons?
>Some 800 pounds of bronze Roman coins dating to the 4th century A.D. have been unearthed by construction workers digging ditches in Spain. The find, in 19 amphora — storage containers — is unique not only because of the volume of coins but because the coins appear to have never been in circulation, making them almost pristine by comparison with other discoveries.
>Workers in the city of Tomares, in Andalusia, were working on installing a water line to a park in the city of 24,000, according to the Spanish newspaper El País, when they noticed irregular terrain inside a ditch about a meter below ground level. Some of the containers were broken, with the coins spilling out of them, while others were intact. They show an emperor on one side and Roman allegories on the other, researchers told reporters. Experts are speculating that the coins were meant to pay taxes or support legions of the Roman armies in Spain at the time.
>Ana Navarro, head of Seville’s Archeology Museum, offered no precise estimate for the value of the haul, saying only that the coins were worth “certainly several million euros.” The Romans invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 206 B.C. and stayed for about 700 years, turning Andalusia into one of the empire’s richest colonies.
How often do Yuropers find bits of roman remains lying around? Does it ever get annoying having to deal with all the stuff the Romans left behind
David Wood
So is it some freshly minted taxes that never got paid or something?
Andrew Foster
This is so weird. Giant jars filled to the brim with cash just left undisturbed and uncollected. How did the Roman Empire just forget it was due a payment from a particular province?
Justin Morgan
Would the Government move money in jars tho?
Seems like a shady way for the Govt to move money doesn't it?
Joseph Bennett
You can still find buried Confederate treasure.
Zachary Garcia
Nah, a lot of the places where there would have been things to find have been built on in the years since
Nathan Martin
I can think of lots of reasons not to advertise the fact you are moving/storing a large quantity of cash
Wyatt Wilson
Yeah but we're talking about a period where few could read or write. Quietly getting information out about cash deliveries should have been pretty easy in those days.
Jeremiah Stewart
Tax collection was done by private enterprise, unless something changed later on, and the 4th century was so unstable at parts that is ready to imagine. I'm most interested in knowing when exactly the coins are from, it would
Jason Baker
>Would the Government move money in jars tho? How would you do it, emperor user?
Robert Smith
Maybe as a way to disguise it? But then again a jar of coins would be heavier than a jar of wine, and something a good bandit would notice (very tired and slow donkey-wagon).
Elijah Moore
I mean its just obviously a good idea not to make it obvious that you are transporting cash. Plus amphorae are good transport vessels anyway
Isaiah Price
Do people not realize they were used as general purpose containers?
Ryder Reed
I think its just because they look like you should put liquid in them that confuses people
Cooper Kelly
Also coins used to be transported in barrels and whatnot. It's a relatively easy way to keep tract of how many coins you have if you put them into separate contained of standard numbers rather than just a huge pile.
Brandon Hughes
Well if it was taxes it would be under heavy guard so how would it get lost and forgotten?
If it was under guard you'd want it in something hard for your men to steal from right?
If you're already paying for a bunch of guards why not a better container?
Carter Sanchez
They used them to store grain and all sorts of other things that you could just dump in a pot.
>In the Bronze and Iron Ages amphorae spread around the ancient Mediterranean world, being used by the ancient Greeks and Romans as the principal means for transporting and storing grapes, olive oil, wine, oil, olives, grain, fish, and other commodities. They were produced on an industrial scale until approximately the 7th century AD. Wooden and skin containers seem to have supplanted amphorae thereafter.
Advantages of pots. It does not require trees, just clay. It does not require fancy automated water powered lumber mills or people sawing wooden slats like boxes. They're very quick to form on an industrial scale. Just toss some clay on a pottery wheel and spin them up, then bulk fire them in a kiln.
William Nguyen
Tax collection was private and up to the tax collector.
The government wouldn't collect taxes. They would sell contracts to tax collectors. Tax collectors would pay for these contracts. The government gets income from selling contracts. And the collectors make money by collecting taxes.
Hudson Hernandez
wew
I imagine that the tax collector of this find died painfully then
>When you gotta tell the Emperor you lost his taxes
Henry Lopez
I think the government share is what's paid for by the contracts. The actual taxes collected are kept by the collector. It's basically like buying debt
Bentley Gomez
never , have found super earlier christian stuff in Cork tho It is nice having history, thats not almost all bad ^_^
Blake Diaz
>ITT: We ignore OP says the coins were uncirculated These weren't tax payments, they were buried very shortly after being minted. Maybe there was some especially bad timing when an attack was imminent right after these were struck. Maybe they were struck specifically to serve as ransom or tribute and were then buried by the recipient, who was himself killed without revealing the location of his horde.
Ethan Foster
More like rich people hiding all their savings in their backyard
Julian Russell
People don't realize that they didn't have cardboard boxes and wooden crates were not durable enough/waterproof
Chase Sanders
what did you find?
Ayden Jackson
A farm that my grandfather owned when I was a kid was at some point a Native American battleground, I used to find lots of flight arrowheads
