coin hoard

While it is likely that some coins still remain in the ploughsoil, the amount of searching undertaken over the last eight years suggests that the vast majority of the hoard is now recovered. The size of the Aldborough Hoard is very unusual. Its 80 sceattas would be tiny in a Roman context, and small even by comparison with Late Anglo-Saxon or medieval coin hoards. However, it is the third-largest sceatta hoard ever found in England. Emphasising how small those known sceatta hoards tend to be, the associated Alpington Hoard (NWHCM 2018.284) is comfortably the fourth-largest sceatta hoard known, with 56 coins. The largest known, by some way, is that from Grove Wood, Aston Rowant, which was discovered principally between 1971 and 1974 but for which only estimates exist of its original size. While 178 sceattas were acquired by the British Museum through Treasure Trove, subsequent parcels were sold at auction and the total is likely to have been in excess of 380. The second largest hoard, from Woodham Walter in Essex, was likewise acquired by the BM and comprises 118 coins; again though, other coins seem to have been disposed of, so that reconstructing the entire hoard is impossible. The Aldborough hoard is of national importance in representing all the coins known from its find-site as well as being remarkable, large, groups of sceattas. As such, it is an important source of information about the economy in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of East Anglia.