Suffolk farmer Eric Lawes discovered this hoard, while using a metal detector to look for a lost hammer.

This huge pile of over 15,000 Roman coins and gold jewellery encapsulates many people’s ideas of ‘treasure’. The gold and silver coins were even found in a wooden ‘treasure’ chest.

The Hoxne Hoard, found in 1992, has been described as the finest Roman hoard ever discovered in Britain. Its items are not of the impressive size of those from Mildenhall, but their shear numbers and exquisite quality make them stand out. Around 200 gold and silver objects along with 14,780 (mostly silver) coins - the accumulated wealth of an important Roman family - were carefully wrapped in cloth and packed in wooden boxes, some with tiny silver padlocks, in the very last days of the Roman occupation of Britain (after AD 407). Both jewellery and plate are represented, as well as more personal items such as a golden body chain and ear cleaners! There are 19 gold bracelets, 78 silver spoons, 20 ladles and a series of modelled figures, four of them silver gilt pepperpots in the shape of an Empress (possibly Helen), an ibex, a hound chasing a hare and Hercules wrestling with Antaeus. Exceptional is the inlaid prancing tigress, once part of a large silver vase. There are several inscriptions and one of the main owners appears to have been a man named Aurelius Ursicinus.

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Hoxen hoard treasure summary