Remarks on some Coins Discovered near Warter, and Presented by Lord Londesborough to the Museums of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, and the Leeds Literary and Philosophical Society

Abstract

In the course of last year, a discovery of a large number of Roman coins was made near Methall, between Warter and Nunburnholme, in the East Riding of this county. On Mr. Newton’s map of the Roman roads in Yorkshire, a road is laid down near this spot, passing from Market Weighton, over the Wolds, to Malton, and many antiquities have been found at Warter, so that it has been suggested, among other places, as the site of the Delgovitia of Antoninus’ Itinerary. The number of the coins was very considerable; between 1,200 and 1,300 of them have been presented by Lord Londesborough to the York Museum, and many have passed into other hands. They are all of the size called by numismatists, third brass ; they begin with the reign of Valerian, and include the reign of his son Gallienus, and his consort, Salonina; the Tyrants, Postumus, the Tetrici and Marius; the Emperor Claudius Gothicus and his brother Quintillus; and Aurelian, Tacitus, and Probus. The time of the deposit, therefore, is probably that of Probus, who reigned from A.D. 276 to 282. Like many hoards it was contained in an earthen vessel, a mode of preservation which, from the language of the Apostle Paul—“We have this treasure in earthen vessels” (2 Cor. iv. 7,) appears not only to have been used for protection against the damp of the earth, as in Jeremiah xxxii. 14, but as an ordinary custom. When Lord Londesborough presented that part of the hoard which ...