Builders find 600 kilos of freshly-minted Roman coins worth millions of euros
Sunday, May 1, 2016 @ 9:53 PM
OVER half a tonne of bronze coins dating back to the Roman era has been found by workmen fitting mains water and drainage pipes in a park.
The contractors dug up 19 amphorae – stone bottles used to transport wine and olive oil – when they dug up the park in Tomares (Sevilla province) and found them full to the brim with coins bearing pictures of emperors Maximilian and Constantine.
Nine of the amphorae, which are smaller than the typical wine-and-oil containers, are broken, but 10 are undamaged.
Historians say the coins would have been used for civil service or military wages or taxes paid to the emperors towards the end of the fourth century AD, and that they were freshly minted and then hidden in a safe vault made from bricks and ceramics buried near where the pipes in the Zaudín Park are due to be laid.
They say the extremely rare discovery is of 'unmeasurable value' in historical terms, and could be worth millions in monetary terms.
As the coins were never in circulation as currency, they are completely intact and not at all worn out.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com