HOARD OF OLD COINS

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 December 1929, Page 10

HOARD OF OLD COINS

FIND IN ENGLISH PARK. Some bf the Most interesting Roman remains in England, are. situated in Lydney Park, Gloucestershire,. the seat of Lord Bledisloe—who' is about to visit New Zealand ,as tlie head of the British farmers’ delegation—where remarkable finds have been made by Dr R. E. M. Wheeler, director of the London Museum. The site is .at prSshnt closed to ,the public, but Lord Bledisloe says that, in the event of the scheme for Utilising the Forest of Dean as England’s first National Park being adopted ,by the Government, he will hand over the Roman camp to the nation. The most striking discovery this

year is a hoard Of 1240 minute coins belonging to the dark pefibd which immediately followed the departure Of the Romahs from the country—years which are dim in history yet glamorous with the romance of Arthur, Merlin and the quest of the Holy Grail. King Arthur’s mo'ffey? It is quite possible, says the “Daily Mail,” Ar* thur may well haVe been an historical character, a British prince, who tried to uphold the ~ traditions of Roman civilisation and the Christian faith agahist the pagain Saxons. The coins which have been found are copies of Roman coins, .but in miniature. Oh each there is* a rough desian. bu t hone is larger th ah a

Mahhdy penny or a sMall globular pin’s head. Mihgled with tlierh are a few clippings of. late fourth century Roman coins. The use of these clippings shows that the Roman coihs hhd become tod valuable to circulate/intact. The minute size of the British money indicates a great scarcity of metal. The coins were found on the site of the Roman baths at Lydney Park, which after the withdrawal of the Romans, may well have been used as a dwelling. They were embedded fh the broken debris of the mosaic floor in the “frigidarium,” or cool room,, of what would now be called a Turkish bath. ■The excavations at Lydney supply an epitome of 500 remote years 'of British h’is'tory. The site is a narrow wooded pYomontbry extending toward the Severn- dsttiary through Lord Bledisloe’s deer park from*’thfe FbYest

of Dean. There are early British fortifications dating, from 100 8.C.; iron mines used by the Romans until the end of the third century; a large Roman house built round a courtyard ! or garden, with intricate mosaic pavements of red, blue and white marble; and an elaborate set of Ro'man baths. Close by is a remarkable temple dedicated to a Romano-British deity, Nodens, who may have been a god of the forest, or a personification of the River Severn, or, like the Celtic Nudd, a god of the fairies or goblins. Nothing is known about his cult, but The teffiple is the earliest example in the. history of religious arcfiite’ctUre in Europe in which the systematic use of side-chapels is found. They Were apparently used as shrines for subsidiary deities after the same manner as Christian chapels are dedicated to saints. /