We had permission to search a large field (69-acres) that the farmer said was "worked" and was "quite flat".
However, when we got there, it didn't look that flat but we gave it a couple of runs. It was too rough to walk on and besides, we were losing a lot of depth due to the deep furrows.
We decided to contact another farmer a few miles away as we knew he had a 50-acre field that was flat a couple of weeks ago.
We got there and it was very flat with only the very small ridges showing where the drill had been in contact with the soil.
It wasn't long before the first of 69 Roman coins began to show.
We could see the stone remains of Roman buildings ahead of us.
On the return run up the field, a large tractor pulled up on the main road so I went over to the driver to ask him if he needed to enter the field as our cars were in the gate opening (not much room to park).
He said yes, he was going to roll the field. I said that I thought it already been rolled as it was so flat!
We carried on as he rolled around us.
The ground was a detectorists heaven, you couldn't get it much flatter.
We were sure that the extra compression of the soil gave up more signals.
As you may know, small Roman coins only give a small signal and are usually never more than about 4 inches deep on arable land.
A Roman trumpet brooch, an unknown brooch and the top section of a Composite Plate brooch came up. A rare lead Roman tessera was an unusual find. These were used as tokens/tickets for admission to theatres, games, baths and even brothels. A nice Roman finger ring and a pair of tweezers were recovered.
One of the coins is a denarius of Julia Domna dated to AD 198 - 202 and the others were all C3rd to C4th copper alloy coins, one being an As of Vespasian AD 69 - 79 and the rest a mix of nummi from 'normal' sized coins (approx 18mm Ø) to tiny minims that were only 7mm Ø.
27 pottery fragments were collected with only one sherd positively identified as Medieval (c.1350 AD), the rest being Roman roof tile, rim sherds and a few pieces of possible tesserae.
HD images of all the finds can be seen here.
However, when we got there, it didn't look that flat but we gave it a couple of runs. It was too rough to walk on and besides, we were losing a lot of depth due to the deep furrows.
We decided to contact another farmer a few miles away as we knew he had a 50-acre field that was flat a couple of weeks ago.
We got there and it was very flat with only the very small ridges showing where the drill had been in contact with the soil.
It wasn't long before the first of 69 Roman coins began to show.
We could see the stone remains of Roman buildings ahead of us.
On the return run up the field, a large tractor pulled up on the main road so I went over to the driver to ask him if he needed to enter the field as our cars were in the gate opening (not much room to park).
He said yes, he was going to roll the field. I said that I thought it already been rolled as it was so flat!
We carried on as he rolled around us.
The ground was a detectorists heaven, you couldn't get it much flatter.
We were sure that the extra compression of the soil gave up more signals.
As you may know, small Roman coins only give a small signal and are usually never more than about 4 inches deep on arable land.
A Roman trumpet brooch, an unknown brooch and the top section of a Composite Plate brooch came up. A rare lead Roman tessera was an unusual find. These were used as tokens/tickets for admission to theatres, games, baths and even brothels. A nice Roman finger ring and a pair of tweezers were recovered.
One of the coins is a denarius of Julia Domna dated to AD 198 - 202 and the others were all C3rd to C4th copper alloy coins, one being an As of Vespasian AD 69 - 79 and the rest a mix of nummi from 'normal' sized coins (approx 18mm Ø) to tiny minims that were only 7mm Ø.
27 pottery fragments were collected with only one sherd positively identified as Medieval (c.1350 AD), the rest being Roman roof tile, rim sherds and a few pieces of possible tesserae.
HD images of all the finds can be seen here.
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