Lost & Found
Oct 28, 2024
A guest blog from FarmED's resident metal detectorist Rob Stepney...
A guiding principle of FarmED is that it all starts with the soil. For some artifacts, it ends there too – until, in the long course of time, they are unearthed. The soil can regenerate, it can sustain, and the soil can also preserve. And in doing so it reveals aspects of the life of those who have walked and worked these fields before us.
Seventeen hundred years ago, Romano-British folk were losing coins in what is now the top field by the gate. I have metal-detected two of them. Both are in poor condition, but, aided by Steve's good eye and experience, I can discern some details.
One of the Roman coins, probably from the reign of Constantius II (AD 337-361), shows a cavalryman spearing a barbarian. Constantius, one of Constantine the Great's sons, ruled the Eastern third of the Roman empire.
This may be relevant to the second coin since, among the little that is legible, we can see the letters SCON. Steve pointed out that this means the coin comes from the second workshop of the Constantinople mint. So this coin too travelled a long way to fetch up in Oxfordshire.
The top field also yielded something far more local – a ring with a crudely-engraved heart. Up to three hundred years old, this too would have a story to tell, if we only knew how to access it. Was the ring lost, or thrown away in heartbreak? Either way, its sentiment is an antidote to the coin which showed the cavalryman spearing a barbarian. Reflecting a highly militarised society, the imagery on Roman coins is at times brutal.
Less personal, but also domestic, are the two Tudor dress hooks that -- five centuries ago -- were lost in the field. The hooks were used to hitch up skirts and keep them out of the mud. One carries the letters IHS, which relate to the Greek abbreviation for JESUS, and so was presumably the property of a devout lady. The county’s Finds Liaison Officer would like to record both items on the British Museum-administered Portable Antiquities database.
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