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UK treasure hunter finds 52,000 Roman coins 
LONDON – A treasure hunter has found about 52,500 Roman coins, one of the largest such discoveries ever in Britain, officials said Thursday.

The hoard, which was valued at 3.3 million pounds ($5 million), includes hundreds of coins bearing the image of Marcus Aurelius Carausius, who seized power in Britain and northern France in the late third century and proclaimed himself emperor.

Dave Crisp, a treasure hunter using a metal detector, located the coins in April in a field in southwestern England, according to the Somerset County Council and the Portable Antiquities Scheme.

The coins were buried in a large jar about a foot (30 centimeters) deep and weighed about 160 kilograms (350 pounds) in all.

Crisp said a "funny signal" from his metal detector prompted him to start digging.

"I put my hand in, pulled out a bit of clay and there was a little radial, a little bronze Roman coin — very, very small, about the size of my fingernail," Crisp said in an interview with the BBC.

He recovered about 20 coins before discovering that they were in a pot, and realized he needed expert help.

"Because Mr. Crisp resisted the temptation to dig up the coins it has allowed archaeologists from Somerset County Council to carefully excavate the pot and its contents, ensuring important evidence about the circumstances of its burial was preserved," said Anna Booth, of Somerset Council... 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100708/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_roman_coins (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100708/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_roman_coins)

Good for him for leaving his find virtually intact so the experts could derive maximum data.  :thumbup: :thumbup:

And where have we heard the name Marcus Auelius Carausius before? "My lover Marcus Auelius Carausius" Lady Sylvia Marsh (Amanda Donohoe) in "Lair of the White Worm."

Still, the location seems a little off. You think something like that'd be found in Derbyshire in northern England, where the film supposedly took place, not southwestern England.

As for the value of the coins, once they are sold. I believe the treasure hunter gets some of it. The landowner where the treasure trove was found gets some. And I think the government gets its share.  So, it looks like everybody makes out in this case.

That makes more sense than many relic laws in the U.S.   You can go to jail for picking up an arrowhead on some rivers and lakes.

I think, if I remember correctly, that is why the law was changed in the U.K. People were not turning in what they found. This way, with everybody getting something out of it, there is an incentive to turn in what you find.

I'd have posted this earlier, but I didn't have a calculator with me.

While the expected amount is for the treasure trove in toto, that works out to about $95.24 per coin.

And what I can not get my mind around, is how small most of the coins must be. That many coins comes to 0.1 oz. per coin. Or to put it another way, you'd need ten of them to equal an oz.

And while alot was done to make "Lair of the White Worm" as realistic as possible. That is not a bust of Marcus Auelius Carausius, "the Rebel Roman Emperor" in the hall of Temple House. Most likely it appears to be a bust of Augustus Caesar.

Treasure Act 1996:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Act_1996 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Act_1996)