AMATEUR UNEARTHS 52,000 ROMAN COINS WORTH $1M
Baku, July 9 (AZERTAC). An amateur treasure hunter armed with a metal detector has found over 52,000 Roman coins worth $1 million buried in field, one of the largest ever such finds in the UK, said the British Museum, CNN reports.
Dave Crisp, a hospital chef, came across the buried treasure while searching for "metal objects" in a field near Frome, Somerset in south-western England.
Initially Crisp found 21 coins, but when he unearthed the pot he knew he needed archaeological help to excavate them.
The hoard contains 766 coins bearing an image of the Roman general Marcus Aurelius Carausius, who ruled Britain independently from AD 286 to AD 293 and was the first Roman emperor to strike coins in Britain.
The hoard was transferred to the British Museum in London where the coins were cleaned and recorded.
The coins date from AD 253 to 293 and most of them are made of debased silver or bronze.
The coins were probably worth about $1 million.
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