The discovery of a Roman villa at Shapwick and its Severan coin hoard of 9238 silver denarii

The site (map ref. ST4242 3951) lies on a small line of hills called the Nidons, which run EW along the N edge of the Polden ridge in mid Somerset (fig. 1). The crest of one of the Nidon ‘hills' runs across the centre of the field containing the site. To the north, the land slopes down to the floodplain of the river Brue, which in the Roman period would have been a raised bog. To the south, the land dips slightly before rising again towards the top of the Polden ridge. The local geology is Jurassic Lower Lias, which is clay with some limestone; the soil (Evesham 1) is a well-drained calcareous clay.

On September 14, 1998, two metal detectorists, Martin and Kevin Elliot, found a very large hoard of Roman silverdenariiin a ploughed field on this ridge in Shapwick parish. The first coin find was made at the N edge of the field. The same plough furrow was then followed south across the field, yielding small numbers of coins until a group of about 70 coins was found; after half an hour the main body of coins was discovered quite close to the group of 70. The distribution of the coins across the field shows that the hoard had suffered considerable plough damage but some 9000 coins were stillin situwith the corrosion products on their surfaces still intact (by contrast, the coins which had been moved by the plough had lost their corroded outer layers and therefore appeared cleaner). No photographs or other records were taken by the finders before they removed the coins, but their verbal description has proved useful. In the undisturbed main body the coins appeared to be arranged in neat individual rows on their sides, suggesting that they may have been deposited in small coin rolls or individually wrapped bundles made of an organic material such as textile or leather (since decayed). The individual rolls were probably contained within a larger sack also made of organic material (the roughly circular shape of the hoard argues against the use of a wooden box).