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Stanchester Hoard
Stanchester Hoard
Material	Coins
Size	1,166 coins
Period/culture	Romano-British
Discovered	Wilcot, Vale of Pewsey, Wiltshire, by John and David Philpott on 25 July 2000
Present location	Wiltshire Museum, Devizes
Identification	2000 Fig 268

51°21′N 1°47′W / 51.35°N 1.79°W / 51.35; -1.79

The Stanchester Hoard is a hoard of 1,166 Roman coins dating from the fourth to early fifth century found in 2000 at Wilcot, in the Vale of Pewsey, Wiltshire, England.^[1] The find was considered important because of the large quantity of unclipped silver coins contained within.^[2] It was also the latest dated example of Roman coins found in Wiltshire.^[1]

Discovery

The hoard was discovered in a field on 25 July 2000 by John and David Philpotts, using metal detectors. It had been buried in a flagon made from pottery of the Alice Holt type.^[1]^[3] The hoard was named after the former Stanchester villa, a nearby Roman villa with which the hoard was likely to have been associated, along with the Wansdyke earthwork.^[4] Excavations of the villa in 1931 and 1969 revealed a wall and evidence for a Roman central heating system. Roof and flue tiles and pottery shards were dated by associated coins, which were from the 2nd to the 4th centuries.^[5]

The Wiltshire Museum in Devizes acquired the hoard for £50,000 following a coroner's inquest which declared it treasure trove.

Items discovered

Rome

Coins from the hoard came from a number of locations across Europe.^[6]

The Stanchester Hoard contains three gold solidi, 33 silver miliarenses—many described as in "mint condition",^[1] 1129 silver siliquae and one copper-alloy nummus, as well as a fragment of a bronze ring.^[3] The earliest coin was struck in the reign of Constantine I starting in 307; the latest coin was struck in 406 during the joint reign of Arcadius and Honorius. The silver coins were not clipped, suggesting that they had never been circulated.^[2]^[4] Within a year of the latest minting, Constantine III, declared emperor by his troops, crossed to Gaul with an army and was defeated by Honorius; it is unclear how many Roman troops remained or ever returned, or whether a commander-in-chief in Britain was ever reappointed.

Reign	Date	? of coins	Empire
Constantinian	307–363	99	Western
Valentinian	364–392	863	Western
Magnus Maximus	383–388	197	Western
Arcadius/Honorius	383–423	3	E / W
Uncertain	–	4	–

The coins came from a number of mints across the Roman Empire, at Siscia, Sirmium, Constantinople, Trier, Aquileia, Lyons, Rome, Thessaloniki, Milan and Antioch.^[3]

Other Stanchester finds

In 1865, Roman tesserae, coins, pieces of bronze, shale whorls, pottery and a flint knife were found in an area known as Stanchester in Curry Rivel, Somerset.^[7]

Other Roman places in England named Stanchester include the site of another villa in Pitchford, Shropshire.^[8]