Iron Age hoard

In the Late Iron Age, a large hoard of coins was buried in western Kent. Was this a religious offering, or did the owners intend to collect? This picture presents the latter scenario- a pair of high-status Britons bury their wealth in a woodland- modelled by the FLO’s for Kent and Sussex. Painted for the Portable Antiquities Scheme

The place: somewhere in the western lands of the Cantiaci, in modern Kent. In a wood, two wealthy Britons bury a large part of their fortune; they have come here in secret, carrying more than 400 coins in a leather sack, in a bucket, to hide their money in a safe place, in the hope that they can retrieve it later. These are troubled times… We will never know whether the coins were an offering to the gods, or whether they were buried for more earthly reasons; certainly they represent a great deal of wealth, suggesting important, high-status ownership. If the owners had intended to come back, then obviously they were not able to, and so the hoard was to lie hidden for 2,000 years.

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