ROMAN COIN

CURATOR'S REPORTSite scatter of 35 Roman coins.Circumstance of Discovery35 Roman coins were found by The Isle of Wight Metal Detecting Club in West Wight, in the Isle of Wight at a small local rally 8 April 2007. They came from an area of grass (which was sown 8 years previously) 50m by 50m and were originally submitted as potential treasure to the Finds Liaison Officer, Frank Basford. Some of the coins were as much as one foot underground. Mr. Basford cleaned off the surplus earth from the coins. The nature of the group suggests that they are site-finds, not a dispersed hoard, therefore not treasure.DiscussionThey are the most unusual group of site-finds that the author has ever seen from Britain. They are summarised in Table 1 by date and mint. Immediately, it is clear that they have a strong bias to mints in the eastern part of the Empire. As a group, they are plausible as site-finds from Britain with a few pre-AD 250 coins and a significant rise in the 4th century (see Table 2 and Figure 1). However, there is not the strong representation of radiate coins from 260-75 that one might expect. Furthermore, this would be a class of site that shows stronger representation in the peri