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Gold coins found stashed in cow bone


If the link's still working you can see them: do they have beaky faces like the Uffington horse? They're facing the right way. Though horses do have to face one way or the other, I admit.

Hoard of golden coins found at dig site
August 14, 2003 08:20

By any stretch of the imagination, it is an unusual moneybox. But some 2000 years ago, this mud-filled end of a cow's leg bone became the storage place for a hoard of Gallo Belgic Es gold coins, or staters, which date from around 60-50 BC.It has come to light just a few days before the end of the eighth season of the Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project (SHARP), which aims ultimately to build up a full history of the village, near Hunstanton.

Each summer sees a continuation of an extensive excavation of a Saxon cemetery in the valley of the Heacham River, which has so far unearthed around 200 skeletons and evidence of an Iron Age settlement.The discovery of the hoard by metal detectorist Kevin Woodward is being hailed as the most significant find in the dig's history and is expected to generate considerable interest in the archaeological world.

"It was in a pit which we had followed down over several years, knowing we might get to something. It was underneath a whole mixture of later gullies cut during the medieval and Saxon periods, bearing in mind it's in the area of our Saxon cemetery.""They are in newly minted condition - they really look superb."

also see the SHARP site:
http://www.sharp.org.uk/ironage/hoard.htm
Rhiannon Posted by Rhiannon
15th August 2003ce
Edited 15th February 2006ce

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