Sam Moorhead, the PAS Roman coins finds advisor visited the Colchester Metal detecting club to talk to them about exciting Roman coin finds from the county.

To Sam, and other coin specialists, ‘exciting coins’ aren’t just the beautiful coins that are practically in mint condition. All those horrid looking grotty green discs that most people think are worthless are actually a fantastic source of information for archaeologists.

If you know where the coin was found, even the most corroded coin can help us to piece together the past. Coins that are mostly illegibly may still have traces of design which an expert like Sam can use to identify them; in the fourth century for example there are a restricted range of very standardised designs so it is often possible to identify them from even the smallest trace of a figure or object. Even with completely illegible coins the module (size, thickness and weight) can give a suggestion of whether they are 1st-2nd century coins or later, helping to give a general impression of the dating on the site. Even with this relatively loose dating, specialists can use the relative proportions of different coins from different Roman periods to begin to characterise sites. For example, very broadly speaking, rural sites generally produce much higher proportions of nummi than urban sites, which often produce more late third century radiates. Coins from certain periods tend to be found in a more worn condition than others so if we don’t examine all the coins, including the worn ones some periods may appear to be quiet when there was actually lots of activity.

Loads of Roman coins have been recorded throughout Essex check it out! http://www.finds.org.uk/database/search/map/objecttype/COIN/broadperiod/ROMAN/county/ESSEX