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Long Barrow
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Six late-4th century bronze coins were found around one of the chambers of this barrow. Now it's always possible that this was the result of a visitor with holes in his or her pockets. And there's also a traditional idea of a 'hoard' of coins, where people stashed them intending to come back. But according to this article*coins of this era have been found at various prehistoric sites... as though they were left as some kind of nod to the local ancestors - perhaps a gift, or a payment for something, or you know, just your vague 'votive / ritual activity' type thing. I suppose one question would be how much were the coins worth? Another thing could be what the coins symbolised to their owners - was having money a flashy thing? and leaving money (rather than leaving a different sort of thing) a way of showing your status to the dead/living, - or was cash just the way their society worked by that time, and the obvious thing to leave? Questions questions.
*'Roman Wealth, Native Ritual: Coin Hoards within and beyond Roman Britain' by N. B. Aitchison, in World Archaeology, Vol. 20, No. 2 (1988), pp. 270-284.
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Posted by Rhiannon
16th March 2009ce
Edited 17th March 2009ce
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