Discover “the largest collection of Roman coins ever found in a cave in northern Spain” thanks to a hungry badger

Posted:

11 ene 2022 17:19 GMT

Finding traces a few meters from the den, scientists assumed that the animal was in dire need of food after the passage of Storm Philomena.

Archaeologists have discovered in an Asturian cave, northern Spain, a hoard of 209 Roman coins supposedly revealed by a badger, when digging the ground in search of food. However, instead of worms, the animal came across a bunch of metal pieces, mostly copper and bronze.

When relics are found a few meters from the bunker, in AprilScientists assumed that the animal was in dire need of food after being starved for a few months due to a strong storm PhilomenaWhich covered vast areas of the country with snow in January 2021.

“So far, this The greatest treasure of roman coins Found in a cave in northern Spain,” say researchers at A Transfer It was published last December in the Cuadernos de Prehistoria y Arqueología of the Autonomous University of Madrid.

The history of treasure coins dates back to Between the middle of the third century and 430. “This time frame allows us to date the sediments, for the time being, and in the absence of new fossils inside and outside the cavity, in the second half of the fifth century AD,” He said Last Saturday to El País one of the study’s authors, Alfonso Fangol. He himself explained that it was “an interesting moment in the Swabian expansion in the northwest of the peninsula”, as was the area where the hiding place was found” Limited area of ​​Roman Asturian territory“.

This discovery belongs to the first phase of a large archaeological project, so researchers hope to return to the area Other excavations. The group suspects that the coins found are part of a much larger treasure, hastily hidden in order to keep it safe from the region’s past political and social instability.