BEHIND THE DIG : AUTUMN DETECTIVAL DAY 1
Romans, Digging Palaces and Digging Firsts!
Autumn Detectival 2023. After the extreme monsoon that was Spring Detectival earlier in the year which saw detectorists wading through actual swamp like conditions we all prayed for a better forecast for Autumn. What we didn’t expect was one of the hottest weekends of the year.
Nevertheless gathering in the 30 degree heatwave on the 52,000 acre Badminton Estate in Gloucestershire morals were high, this was one of the biggest digging events in the year and the main arena was better than ever with brand new entertainment and food on offer. Not to mention the utter history that surrounded us. You only had to have a brief research into the Badminton Estate to discover that it contains the remains of several Roman Villas, is the original location of the sport Badminton and has been the principal seat of the Dukes of Beaufort since the late 17th century with various Kings and Queens visiting the property for centuries. A millennia of activity existing across this parkland, and a very positive history forecast for the weekend to come.
Yet another positive note was that Roman Found has had an upgrade. In unpacking the car it isn’t the battered burnt orange case of the 3 man pop up tent that emerges, no a brand new smart red and blue bag appears in its place, this one even has its own wheels. The Berghaus Nightfall Air 400. Or a digging palace as we were calling it. We’ve even bought a shoe rack to keep things tidy inside. A far, far cry from the shanty town of previous weekenders. It even went up a dream too, as whilst there may have been a small struggle with what turned out to be a very easy valve system, if you read the instructions properly, it was practically no time at all before the Burj Khalifa of tents appeared in front of us. A sanctuary for what we were sure was going to be the standard feral digging weekend.
The Berghaus Nightfall Air 400. Or a digging palace as we were calling it.
So we kicked things off in true Roman Found style and with basecamp sorted headed to the bar. If you ever want to find us at these events then the best place to look is either the fields or the bar. Where else are we going to be after all? We’ve got plenty of socialising to do, it’s the first official gathering of the Roman Found Discord gang and there’s always plenty of essential gossiping with the other LP Affiliates and Co. Several pints down the line and plenty of discussions had been had around everything Roman, everything Youtube and much, much debate about the most important question of the evening, “What field are you going to tomorrow?”.
But of course we had to check out the brand new Kentucky Derby, £2 a go and the top prize was a pinpointer?! A no brainer really, to be honest we were most excited about the prospect of winning a Detectival Spray Bottle for one victory. Tom Ayling had joined us by now and set up in our digging palace, we had bedrooms in this thing and a lounge you know, and tested his Derby skills against Searcher Dan and Si Finds. The main arena this year boasted these exciting new additions to the usual line up from the Kentucky Derby to Axe Throwing, a Live DJ and a brand new ‘Hot Rocket’ Food Van serving Cuban Sandwiches, but more on these later on.
Our favourite addition to the arena however was the alternative Magic Teapot tent serving unlimited 24 hours tea and coffee refills alongside live fireside entertainment performed by the on site band. The perfect way to end the evening. Aaron the Anglo Saxon Sceat Hunter even leapt onto the guitar and joined the band taking requests as we sang, chatted and danced away into the early hours.
Naturally the following morning saw us emerging not so fresh faced from the digging palace. An act that we entirely blame upon waiting up for Treasure Nicks’s late arrival as his plane got delayed and not upon getting a bit too carried away inside the Magic Teapot Tent. Of course Nick’s taxi driver didn’t help either as much convincing had to be done that this random field was exactly the place Nick wanted taking to, and yes there was a ‘strange festival in the middle of nowhere’.
It’s Nick's first time digging in Britain over from the States, so after some much needed breakfast and gathering of the troops we start the trek to Field 41. The most promising field on the agenda boasting a Celtic Field System and Roman activity and hopefully the place where Nick and Tom can find their first ever Roman coins. Badminton Park itself has got some great evidence of Roman history within it containing several excavated Roman Villas, one of which that was first noted in 1686 and further excavated by the Duchess of Beaufort and Lord Albert Conyngham in around 1846 to reveal a whole site with much pottery, coins, bronze statuettes and intaglios being uncovered. So there’s got to be some Roman lurking about.
If you ever want to find us at these events then the best place to look is either the fields or the bar.
An hour after leaving the main campsite field we arrive at Field 41. It was quite the hike, but there were shuttle tractors running to assist with the walk. Thankfully the far distance seems to have put off most of the 2,000 other detectorists joining us in the fields and it’s looking blissfully quiet. Quiet, apart from Chris, better known as Found in the Ground, who's already here swinging and already on the Roman! It seems like we’ve got some catching up to do!
Barely an hour in and the boys join Chris on the Roman, as one by one they are gleefully clutching a freshly dug Roman, their first ever, and for Tom his first ever coin let alone a Roman! Nick’s bears the most detail and is a beautiful example of a double standard GLORIA EXERCITVS reverse type of Constantine I and dates from 330 - 335 AD. This is a type that shares a very special place in our hearts as it is the same as our very own first Roman and now Nicks. There’s so much detail left around the legend of Nick’s Roman that we are even able to identify it as coming from the Lugdunum Mint which means that this small coin has actually travelled all the way over here from France, right from the modern day city of Lyon, maybe even in the pocket of a legionnaire!
So it appears that Roman Found has some work to do. We can’t let the boys show us up and everyone seems to be firmly on the Roman whilst the only things gracing our finds pod are several large musket balls that seem to be quite thoroughly littered throughout the field. At least these musket balls couldn’t be more connected to the land that we are digging in as they reveal some important 17th Century sporting history that surrounds Badminton Park.
Badminton Park which dates from the 13th Century is the home of the Duke of Beaufort Hunt, also known as the Badminton Hunt, which is actually one of the two most famous hunts in the country and is the hunt specifically credited with starting the fashion for fox hunting. Dating from the 17th Century it is one of the few surviving hunts that remain in private hands; we even saw them parading through on our walk to this very field. Whilst hunting animals with dogs has been illegal since the Hunting Act of 2004, hunts still exist all over the country simply following specific trails to operate within the law.
But marked into the musket balls themselves are also reminders of their use as each one bears a flattened dashed band around its middle which is known as a set up band. This set up band is a phenomenon that occurs when two or more musket balls are loaded at once into the gun. Evidence left upon these humble lead artefacts of the hunting activity that the park is famous for.
The only things gracing our finds pod are several large musket balls that seem to be quite thoroughly littered throughout the field.
But enough about musket balls because we’ve just unearthed our first Roman! The first notch in the tally against the boys and a lovely barbarous radiate dating from 215 - 295 AD, easily identifiable by the spiky crown adorning his bust.
These barbarous radiate romans come from the mid 3rd Century of the Roman Empire where it was economically in a bit of a disarray with coinage constantly being heavily debased and several parts of the Empire experiencing a shortage of supply in spare change. When faced with these shortages and an already poor quality currency in circulation they simply topped up the currency pool with contemporary copies of the official types that they were missing. These types of ad hoc Romans appear in Britain and Gaul and are commonly known as barbarous radiates, they appear between the reigns of Emperor Gallienus to Tetricus II and vary widely across size, style, and execution often being quite abstracted from the official types they are attempting to copy. This coin however appears to be quite a competent forgery and with his clean shaven boyish face bears quite the likeness to Tetricus II.
With a good wealth of Roman activity appearing across our group as Aaron unearths a lovely disc brooch complete with enamel and gilt, almost everyone seems to have found at least a grotty Roman, and a beautiful Denarius has been pulled up by a lucky chap just a few feet over. We settle in for the day. The pushing 30 degree heat is far too extreme for field hopping, we’ve already hiked all this distance to the furthest field on the map, so the only thing to do is to get into the zone and work this field hard.
However our next find of note turns out to be and still remains a bit of a mystery. We aren't even sure if it’s Roman. We’ve explored the avenues of toggles, brooches, strap fittings, bridle bits but nothing seems to fit with its rather unusual T shaped terminal. And the fact it’s zoomorphic with its little eye decoration on one side? Is it human, is it a fish? We still have absolutely no idea; it's certainly going to require a much deeper investigation. So watch this space.
But don’t worry because we’ve created some healthy competition with the boys now pulling up our third Roman, a decent sized grot that bears the clean shaven face and chubby cheeks of a member of the House of Constantine or Constantinian Dynasty period of the Roman Empire dating from 307 - 361 AD.
The House of Constantine references the period of the ruling family of the Roman Empire from Constantius Chlorus to the death of Julian in 363 AD. It is named after its most famous member, Constantine the Great and under this family, Rome, the centre of the Western world, transformed itself from paganism to Christianity, the Empire's frontiers were improved by building powerful castles and by the end of this period Christianity remained as the main religion for the future as Julian met a rather sticky end attempting to restore the previous paganism.
The pushing 30 degree heat is far too extreme for field hopping so the only thing to do is to get into the zone and work this field hard.
We continue to firmly dig into the history of the House of Constantine as we twin with Nick pulling up another GLORIA EXERCITVS type minted at Lugdunum but this time minted under Constantine II dating from 330 - 331 AD. And it isn’t surprising to pull up an almost identical coin to Nick either as this type is possibly one of the most common Roman Coins out there struck in vast numbers at the time. It was minted so vastly because of the struggles with inflation, a left over effect from the crisis of the 3rd Century.
But the most fascinating part to this common Roman reverse is the choice of iconography. It bears an important nod to celebrating the military. A choice that was made at a time where military revolts and usurpers had a huge effect on the course of the Roman Empire. The Emperors knew all too well that the soldiers were the ones who put them on the throne and they were also very capable of taking them down again, just look at Constantine the Great the Emperor who first started this particular design of coin after his reign was only made possible by the Roman army stationed in York.
We can also report that we, like the Roman Emperors with their iconography choices, did make some sensible decisions in the heat and didn’t just dig like lunatics. At just past lunch we decided to retire to the edge of the field for a well earned siesta in the shade. Tom had already had several by this time, and even had a favourite tree for lounging, having found his Roman treasure for the day. We were on 5 for our Roman tally and very ready to tuck into our Haribo pick and mix bags, drink the precious reserves of water and catch up on the goss from the other fields. Have we mentioned we were part of the Found in the Ground radio gang? Chatting over and refuelled with Welsh cakes kindly donated by fellow LP recruit Stephen we get back at it deciding to attack the area that has thrown up the highest concentration of Roman with a random slow potter. A tried and tested Roman Found technique. By this late period in the afternoon the stubble had been handily trampled down by all the traffic leaving Lucie able to get the coil closer to the ground than ever before.
The Emperors knew all too well that the soldiers were the ones who put them on the throne and they were also very capable of taking them down again.
It wasn’t long before the metal detecting gods rewarded our hardened efforts against the heat as a small piece of Medieval silver emerged from the soil. Dozens of people have walked over this very spot all day but we persevered, not moving more than 20m the entire afternoon and now we are looking at a half cut short cross most likely depicting King John and dating from the period 1199 - 1216 AD as our reward. A sit down moment, especially as very few Medieval coins had emerged from this particular spot and field.
Short crosses in particular come from quite an interesting period in the coinage timeline as upon Henry II’s accession to the throne in 1154 he found the circulating currency in a very unsatisfactory state as along with the official coinage, a mixture of baronial, foreign and irregular coins, often anonymous, or underweight, were freely circulating. He attempted to remedy this with the introduction of Tealby Pennies but their quality of production was so poor that in 1180 the coinage was rehauled and the short cross penny introduced.
The design of the short cross pennies was hardly changed throughout the sixty-seven years of their issue, and that even includes the ruler’s name in the legend, which gave both the coinage and the state a sense of stability that they were previously lacking but it does also make them incredibly tricky to identify and it wasn’t actually until the discovery of the Eccles Hoard in 1864 which contained no fewer than 5715 English short cross pennies that an important turning point was made in the chronological ordering, dating and identifying of short crosses as a result of the contextual archaeological data that it provided.
Detectival day 1 was a difficult dig by any account but perseverance was really starting to pay off for us out in Field 41 plodding over our 20m square patch. And the day wasn’t quite over there yet either! But we are afraid you’ll have to wait for the next instalment to find out just how full the finds tin was upon leaving!
