Archaeologists have uncovered three Roman-era money jars, packed with tens of thousands of coins, sealed beneath the floor of a late Roman house. The 1,800-year-old “piggy banks” were left behind after a pair of devastating fires wiped out the settlement — and then simply waited underground for nearly two millennia.
Hidden savings beneath a village living room
The rare hoards were found at Senon, a small village in northeastern France, during excavations led by France’s National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP). The site lies within what was once Roman Gaul, a wealthy frontier region packed with garrisons, trade routes and prosperous rural estates.
Archaeologists uncovered three large ceramic vessels, or amphorae, sunk into pits cut into the floor of a house. Their necks were left level with the floor surface, turning them into built-in savings jars.
Each amphora functioned like a fixed, in-house safe: buried for security, yet accessible enough to top up with coins over time.
The contents are staggering. The first jar alone held around 38 kilograms (about 83 pounds) of coins, estimated at 23,000 to 24,000 individual pieces. A second jug weighed roughly 50 kilograms (110 pounds) with coins, suggesting another 18,000 to 19,000 coins based on an initial sample.
The third amphora had been removed in antiquity; archaeologists found only three stray coins left in the empty pit. That missing vessel hints that at least one of the hoards was recovered before the final catastrophe struck the settlement.
Not just one treasure: a landscape of hoards
The Senon find sits in a region already known for coin stashes. Around 30 hoards are documented from the wider area, pointing to intense money use and frequent stockpiling in the later Roman period.
The real breakthrough here is context: three large hoards, still in their original locations, embedded in a domestic interior.
Because the jars stayed in place, archaeologists can reconstruct how the owners used their money inside their home, rather than guessing from a random pot of coins found in a field. At Senon, the amphorae were discovered in a residential district with stone houses, underfloor heating systems, basements and small workshops equipped with stoves.
➡️ The “grandparent habit” that psychologists say creates the strongest bond with grandchildren
➡️ Warum Sie manchmal Dinge aufbewahren, die Sie nicht mehr brauchen – und wie Sie loslassen lernen
➡️ Goodbye fines : here are the new official speed camera tolerances
Nearby stood a Roman fortification, suggesting a population that included soldiers, craftsmen and traders — people used to dealing in cash and vulnerable to swings in imperial politics and local security.
Were these emergency hoards or planned savings?
At first glance, buried pots of coins look like classic emergency stashes, hidden during invasions or civil wars. Yet the Senon jars tell a subtler story.
In at least two of the amphorae, archaeologists noticed single coins stuck to the rims. These coins could only have been added after the jars were already buried and the pits still open.
This pattern suggests regular deposits over time, more like a long-term savings account than a panicked attempt to hide wealth.
The jars’ necks were deliberately left accessible at floor level. Residents could walk across the room, lift a lid or cloth cover and drop in fresh coins. That design clashes with the usual emergency-hoard scenario, where owners bury wealth in hard-to-find spots — gardens, fields, or remote woodland — and then vanish from the record.
What the coins say about their owners
The coins themselves help date the hoards and offer clues about the owners’ lives. Many pieces carry the portraits of rulers tied to a turbulent chapter of Roman history, including:
- Victorinus – a short-lived emperor of the breakaway Gallic Empire
- Tetricus I – another Gallic emperor ruling Gaul and nearby provinces
- Tetricus II – his son and junior co-ruler
These emperors governed the Gallic Empire, a splinter state that controlled Gaul, Britain and parts of Germany from AD 260 until it was pulled back into the Roman fold in AD 274 under the emperor Aurelian.
Based on the coin types and their wear, INRAP specialists believe the amphorae were filled and sealed between about AD 280 and 310. That period followed decades of political upheaval, invasions and currency reforms across the empire.
Fire, abandonment and 1,700 years of silence
The Senon settlement didn’t vanish quietly. Archaeological layers show that in the early 4th century, a large fire tore through the district. Buildings burnt, roofs collapsed and the jars, still tucked into their pits, were sealed under rubble and ash.
The community seems to have rebuilt. New occupation levels lie above the burned layers, suggesting people tried again. But a second fire later in the 4th century appears to have ended the story for good.
When residents finally walked away from Senon, the buried coins stayed behind — forgotten savings that never reached their owners’ hands again.
Because no one returned for the jars, the hoards remained untouched, preserving a snapshot of one household’s finances at the end of Roman Gaul’s heyday.
How much were these “piggy banks” really worth?
Translating ancient coins into modern money is tricky, but numismatists can estimate their buying power using Roman price lists, soldiers’ pay records and legal documents.
| Historical item | Approximate cost in low-value coins |
|---|---|
| Loaf of bread | A handful of small bronze coins |
| Simple pair of shoes | Perhaps a few dozen coins |
| Monthly wage of a low-ranking labourer | Several hundred coins |
| Annual salary of a soldier | Thousands of coins |
With upwards of 40,000 coins in total, the Senon hoards could represent the equivalent of several years of pay for one or more households. The money might have funded property improvements, stocked a workshop or supported a family through bad harvests or military service.
Why archaeologists care so much about context
On their own, ancient coins are attractive collectibles. In context, they become data. At Senon, the combination of the house layout, the jars’ positions and the coin dates helps researchers reconstruct how Roman families handled risk.
This kind of find sheds light on questions such as:
- Did people save as households or individuals?
- Were savings kept in a single spot, or spread across several hiding places?
- How did periods of inflation or political instability change saving habits?
Because Senon lies near a fort, the hoards might also relate to military pay. Soldiers were usually paid in coins and often settled near their posting after service, bringing cash and contacts into local economies.
Hoards, everyday money and risks for today’s finders
Coin hoards often tempt treasure hunters, but removing them without proper recording destroys much of their value for research. Archaeologists don’t just count coins; they document soil layers, container shapes, building phases and burn marks.
For scholars, the precise position of a single coin in a jar can matter as much as the coin itself.
In many European countries, including France and the UK, chance finds must be reported to authorities. That allows professionals to excavate safely, catalog objects and study them in relation to their surroundings.
For anyone who stumbles across old coins, the safest and usually most rewarding route is to leave them in place, mark the spot and contact local archaeological services. Many projects allow members of the public to join supervised digs, giving people a chance to handle the past without damaging it.
From Roman savings to modern lessons
The Senon “piggy banks” offer a concrete reminder that people in the late Roman Empire faced choices that feel familiar today: where to keep savings, how to protect them, and what happens when crisis hits faster than anyone expects.
For modern readers, these jars give a useful framework for thinking about financial resilience. The ancient household diversified its strategies: coins buried under the floor, workshops for income, solid stone buildings, proximity to a military installation. Yet even that mix couldn’t fully shield them from repeated disaster.
Archaeologists will now clean, sort and study the tens of thousands of coins, looking at metal content, mint marks and circulation patterns. Their work will gradually turn one household’s lost fortune into a detailed account of how money flowed, was trusted and was quietly saved in a frontier village almost 1,800 years ago.
Originally posted 2026-02-12 01:22:10.