Julia Tubman, conservator, British Museum
In November 2007, during a routine archaeological excavation in advance of building work in Beau Street, Bath (a stone’s throw from the famous Roman Baths themselves), archaeologists came upon what was clearly a very large number of coins contained within a cist (a stone-lined box). Upon further excavation, they quickly came to realise they were looking at one of the largest coin hoards found in the UK…
As I made the highly intelligent decision of creating this blog during a period of epic procrastination from essay writing, I am now in a position where I am too busy and frazzled to commit to in-depth posts at the moment. So instead I thought I'd reblog this wonderful article from The British Museum Blog about the Beau Street Hoard of coins discovered in Bath. Being a numismatist in the making, this has really peaked my interest and I'm excited to see that Richard Abdy (Curator of Roman Coins & Medals at BM - see his staff profile here) is involved with the project. I was lucky enough to attend a talk by Richard at The Barber Institute of Fine Arts (lucky as its part of my university) to coincide with their latest numismatics exhibit - Cityscapes: Panoramic Views on Coins and Medals - and he is a world-leading numismatist and truly interesting man. I may hopefully (fingers, toes and other extremities crossed) be working with him and the department for a few weeks this Summer, so I can question him persistently and annoyingly about the Hoard!
Now back to Nero and the rhetoric of the grotesque!
Helen
