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More than 5,500 silver coins buried by a river about 1,800 yr ago are now in the hands of archeologist , follow the hoard ’s discovery in Augsburg , Germany .
At the time of the coins ' burial , theRoman Empirewas in full swing , with its neologism pass all corner of its territorial dominion and beyond .
About 5,500 Roman silver coins were found in the hoard. Cleaning and analysis of the coins is underway.
These coins " are denarii , the standardsilverdenomination during the first - early tertiary century [ A.D. ] , " Stefan Krmnicek , a prof of ancient numismatics ( the study of coins ) at the University of Tübingen in Germany , told Live Science in an email .
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Archaeologists establish the hoard in the beginning this year in an erstwhile river bottom . But though the coin were spread in the newly dug pit , that likely was n’t how they were originally place . " The place of concealment was in all likelihood washed away many hundred later by a flood of the Wertach river , spread out the coins in the river crushed rock , " Krmnicek said .
" We have just started clean and examine the stuff , " but so far , it come along that " the untried coin of the cache was minted at the beginning of the tertiary century [ A.D. ] , thus dating the deposition of the hoard in the other tertiary 100 , " Krmnicek said . " We currently hypothesize that the cache was entomb in the early 3rd century outside the Romanic metropolis of Augusta Vindelicum , near the Via Claudia Augusta [ a papistic route ] running there . "
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At that time , Augusta Vindelicum was the capital of the Roman Catholic state of Raetia , Krmnicek order . Why the hoard was lay to rest is an ongoing mystery that researchers are endeavor to solve .
" We do not yet know why the hoard was fix , " Krmnicek articulate , note that Leo Brey , a doctoral candidate at the University of Tübingen , is trying to solve this " conundrum " in his research . The hoard was excavated by Sebastian Gairhos , director of the Archaeological Service of the City of Augsburg . No artefact other than the coins were found with the cache .
Originally write on Live Science .
