Thousands of abandoned Roman treasures in Europe: The mystery finally solved

Why did thousands of Romans never dig up their fortunes? This is the question researchers Adrian-Daniel Stan and Cristian Gǎzda sought to answer.

The two colleagues chose to focus not on the reasons these treasures were buried, but on the reasons their owners never returned. Wars, natural disasters, and conquests forever etched into the ground.

To conduct their study, they drew on one of the world’s largest databases dedicated to Roman coin hoards: the CHRE database at the University of Oxford and the Ashmolean Museum in the same city, which catalogs more than 18,000 hoards and 7.5 million coins discovered across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.

Their conclusion, reported by The Debrief, is striking: these “forgotten fortunes,” buried in the ground, are the silent traces of the Roman Empire’s darkest periods.

In the footsteps of a tragic fate

While some hiding places (leather pouches or ceramic pots under houses) were likely intended to only be temporary, their owners were never able to return to them. According to the researchers, two distinct phenomena are believed to be behind this abandonment:

• foresight: in daily life, it was sometimes necessary to hide one’s possessions from thieves or tax collectors, or to set them aside as offerings;
• adversity: protecting possessions before a war, an invasion, or forced displacement.

The location and number of these forgotten treasures, moreover, coincide perfectly with the major upheavals of the Empire. Thus, buried coins have been found near the Teutoburg Forest, where three legions were decimated in the year 9 A.D., as well as in Britain and around Mount Vesuvius—areas marked by tribal wars and natural disasters.

More than just loot for treasure hunters, researchers, and archaeologists, these lost riches constitute a unique archive. They poignantly reveal how the people of antiquity tried to survive in the face of the insecurity of a violent world.