A soldier glances around from before Descends In the woods and pits. He carefully puts his valuables into the dirty hole and covers it up. Systematically memorizes the location through a nearby landmark.
Or maybe the scene looked a little different.
An exhausted merchant hurries into the forest and falls to his knees. He flinched at every sound, and buried his treasures as quickly as possible. Jumping to his feet, he takes one last look at the disturbed ground and runs.
Either way, one thing is for sure. Whoever buried their treasure never returned.
A volunteer went for a walk through the newly cleared part of a Forest in LivornoItaly, in November 2021. Walking down the slope, they noticed a gleaming luster between the leaves, according to an April 14 press release from the oversight body for monuments, fine arts and landscapes for the provinces of Pisa and Livorno that shares the Livornese Paleontological Archaeological Group.
Looking closer, the hiker realizes they have found some old coins. Local archaeological authorities were called in to investigate.
Archaeologists have excavated and unearthed the area 175 ancient Roman coins. The history of silver coins dates back more than 2,000 years, reports Il Tirreno, an Italian outlet. The pictures show the little worn silver discs.
The outlet stated that most of the coins were found bundled together with parts of a container. A few coins were found scattered in the area. No other artifacts were detected.
“The coins were definitely hidden,” Lorella Alderighy, the archaeologist who investigated the find, told LiveScience. They formed a “treasure” or a piggy bank. The easiest way to hide valuables was to bury them underground, far away from homes where no one could find them.”
The oldest coins date to around 157 BC, and the most recent to 82 BC Hungarian Numismatic Society he said in a Facebook post.
The latest coins correspond to a “very turbulent historical period” of the ancient Roman Empire, Alderighi told LiveScience. The empire was in the middle of its first full-scale civil war.
These coins may have been the savings of a soldier returning home [during] Al-Derighi said.
Alternatively, the coins could have been hidden by a wealthy merchant, another historian told LiveScience.
The statement said the treasure trove had been hidden for two thousand years. The silver finds will soon be on display at the Natural History Museum of the Mediterranean in the territory to Livorno, El Tirreno reported.
Livorno is located about 200 miles northwest of Rome along the Mediterranean coast.
Facebook Translate was used to translate the news release from the Superintendent of Antiquities, Fine Arts and Landscapes of the Provinces of Pisa and Livorno shared by the Livornese Archaeological Paleontology Collection and the post from the Hungarian Numismatic Society. Google Translate was used to translate the article from Il Tirreno.
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