Andrea here, Where I live in New England, the bright blaze of autumn colors are beginning to fade and give way to the more somber taupe and grey hues of Winter. The days are growing shorter too, the sunlight flickering out in late afternoon . . . which puts me in the mood for some bright, sparkly things.
And what can be more sparkly than a treasure trove of gold!
I’ve recently been looking at photos from my research travels (Oh, for the day when we can travels again!) and some pictures from my visit to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford caught me eye. Most of the shots I took related to Regency-era research for my Wrexford and Sloane mystery series—lots of scientific instruments and early technology. But I also couldn’t resist stopping at the display of . . . buried treasure. Glittery gold—admit it—it sends some sort of primal thrill trilling down your spine to think of stumbling across such a discovery . . .
It’s called the Didcot Hoard (for the town in Oxfordshire, England near where it was discovered by Bill Darley, who was using a metal detector to explore) and it’s considered one of the most spectacular caches of Roman coins ever found in Britain.
Many hoards of bronze and silver coins have been found over the years. What makes this one so special it that the coins are gold—and not just any gold, but nearly pure 24k gold. (When you see them in person the richness of the color is breathtaking. The most recent coin in the hoard dates to 160 CE, which was the last year of the reign of Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius.The coins are called aurei (singular:aureus) and were a standard denomination throughout the Roman Empire. They were very practical in that their worth make it easy to transport a lot of money with less bulk and weight than silver and bronze. They were often used for the payrolls sent to the legions stationed in the far-flung corners of the empire.
There are many speculations as to why it was buried . . . a rich local burying it for safekeeping during times of trouble . . . a legionnaire commander skimming off pay of the payroll . . . a theft, buried to hide it until the heat died down. Of course, we’ll never know for sure, but it’s fun to fantasize . . .
And speaking of fantasies, looking at these photos I took of the Didcot Hoard got me to thinking of mystique of buried treasure and the hold it seems to have on our collective imagination. As a kid, I was enthralled by Treasure island, and the idea of some magical map with X marks the Spot! ((I was chided about digging one too many holes in the back yard.) Then in grade school, I heard that part of the treasure accumulated by Captain Kidd, the notorious pirate, was recovered on Gardiner’s Island, off the tip of Long Island, after he was captured—but that more was rumored to have been buried somewhere on the New England coastline. Suffice it to say, I lugged along my pail and plastic shovel on every visit to the beach that summer.
My shovel is long gone, but I couldn’t resist digging around on the internet regarding the subject of “lost” treasures—and of course found a list of six famous missing treasures. (You can read all the details here.)
Included are the Ark of the Covenant (sorry, that’s not quite sparkly enough for me!) Blackbeard’s Treasure, which is rumored to lie somewhere between Chesapeake Bay and the Caribbean, and the legendary trainload of Nazi gold bars, which are said to have been sunk in the frigid water of Lake Toplitz in Austria.
So what about you? Does the lure of hidden treasure sing a siren song in your ear? Would you like to find a treasure map in some dusty antique shop . . . and would you follow it? And what sort of treasure would you like to discover? Another King Tut? A cache of fabulous exotic gems? Come on, let's have some fun! Let your imagination run wild!
