Level 1 — Absolute Beginner
A man named Oliver Riedl likes to search for old things. He uses a metal detector. It finds metal under the ground.
Oliver was searching in a field in Germany. His metal detector kept beeping. He found silver coins.
The coins are very old Roman coins. There are 934 coins in total. They are called denarii.
This is the biggest group of Roman silver coins ever found in Germany from this time. People buried the coins almost 2,000 years ago.
- metal detector
- a tool that finds metal objects hidden under the ground
- coin
- a round piece of metal money
- silver
- a shiny white metal, often used for coins and jewelry
- field
- an open area of land, often used for farming
- Roman
- relating to ancient Rome, a powerful empire long ago
- hoard
- a large group of valuable things hidden or buried together
- bury
- to put something under the ground
- museum
- a building where old and interesting objects are shown to the public
Level 2 — Elementary
An amateur archaeologist named Oliver Riedl was searching a field near the town of Wesseling in western Germany when his metal detector began beeping again and again.
After digging up 15 silver coins, Riedl realized he had found something important. He contacted the local archaeological office, called the LVR, so that experts could take over the excavation safely.
In total, archaeologists recovered 934 Roman silver denarii, weighing about 3.1 kilograms. This is the largest hoard of coins from the era of Emperor Hadrian ever discovered in Germany.
Experts believe someone buried the coins during the second quarter of the second century, hiding their savings for a reason that remains unknown. The coins will soon go on public display for the first time at the LVR Landesmuseum in Bonn.
- amateur archaeologist
- a person who studies or searches for ancient objects as a hobby, not a job
- excavation
- the careful digging up of buried objects or sites
- recover
- to find and bring back something that was lost or hidden
- era
- a period of time, often named after a ruler or event
- emperor
- the ruler of an empire
- savings
- money that a person keeps or stores rather than spends
- century
- a period of one hundred years
- on display
- shown publicly, often in a museum
Level 3 — Intermediate
An amateur archaeologist searching a field near Wesseling in western Germany has uncovered 934 Roman silver denarii, forming the largest hoard from the reign of Emperor Hadrian ever recorded in the country.
Metal detectorist Oliver Riedl first noticed his device signaling repeatedly and dug up fifteen coins before realizing the scale of what he had found. Following Germany's reporting rules for archaeological discoveries, he contacted the LVR regional archaeological office, which then carried out a controlled excavation of the site.
The recovered hoard weighs approximately 3.1 kilograms of silver. While the majority of the coins date from the reign of the Flavian emperors, spanning 69 to 96 AD, the oldest coin in the collection was minted as far back as 148 BC, suggesting the hoard accumulated over generations before being buried.
Archaeologists estimate the coins were interred sometime during the second quarter of the second century AD, though the motive, whether for safekeeping during unrest or as a ritual deposit, remains unknown. Because Riedl reported his discovery through the proper legal channels, he is entitled to a finder's reward from the state, and the hoard will go on public display for the first time at the LVR Landesmuseum in Bonn.
- reign
- the period during which a monarch or emperor rules
- device
- a piece of equipment made for a particular purpose
- controlled excavation
- a carefully managed archaeological dig conducted by trained experts
- mint
- to manufacture a coin, or the place where coins are made
- accumulate
- to gradually gather or build up over time
- inter
- to bury, especially in a formal or deliberate way
- ritual deposit
- an object buried as part of a ceremonial or religious practice
- finder's reward
- a payment given by the state to someone who legally reports a discovery
Level 4 — Advanced
The discovery of 934 Roman silver denarii in a field outside Wesseling, unearthed by an amateur metal detectorist whose device would not stop signaling after an initial fifteen coin haul, has yielded what regional archaeologists describe as the largest hoard from Hadrian's reign ever documented within Germany's borders.
That Oliver Riedl halted his own digging and notified the LVR regional archaeological office, rather than continuing to excavate unsupervised, proved consequential: the subsequent controlled recovery preserved contextual information, the coins' arrangement, depth, and associated soil layers, that unsupervised digging routinely destroys, and that numismatists rely on to reconstruct not just what was buried but how and why.
The hoard's numismatic profile is itself revealing. Although the bulk of the coins were struck under the Flavian emperors between 69 and 96 AD, the presence of a denarius minted as early as 148 BC indicates that whoever assembled the collection, whether an individual or successive owners, drew on currency that had already circulated for generations, a pattern consistent with hoards understood as accumulated savings rather than a single disbursement, such as a military payment.
Whether the cache was concealed amid the political disruptions that punctuated the early second century, or interred for reasons that left no documentary trace, is a question the physical evidence alone cannot resolve, and archaeologists have been careful not to overstate their certainty. What is not in dispute is the hoard's evidentiary value: it will enter the LVR Landesmuseum's collection in Bonn as one of the most substantial single deposits of Hadrianic era Roman currency ever recovered from German soil, a benchmark against which future finds in the region are likely to be measured.
- unearth
- to dig up or discover something buried
- consequential
- having significant effects or importance
- contextual information
- surrounding details that give meaning to an object or event
- numismatist
- a person who studies or collects coins
- disbursement
- a payment or distribution of money
- cache
- a hidden store of valuable items
- documentary trace
- written or recorded evidence of an event
- benchmark
- a standard used to judge or compare other things
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