A mudlark named Regis Kersonen, a head pastry chef at a fancy London restaurant, spends his free time scouring the muddy foreshore of the River Thames. He is the first Frenchman accepted into the famous Mudlark Society, and on one of his searches, he found a small token that he initially mistook for a Roman coin. On one side was an unusual Roman numeral for 14, and on the other, a rather saucy erotic image of a couple having fun. He took it to Kath Creed at the Museum of London, who confirmed it was a brothel token, a 2,000-year-old currency used in Roman London’s seedy underworld.
The images on the tokens might have served as a menu, letting a customer match their desired service with the number on the other side, although some experts now think they were simply gaming pieces, like medieval playing cards. Regis generously donated this rare find to the museum, a seemingly inconsequential object that suddenly brought Roman life back into focus. Not all Roman objects are about earthly pleasures, though. A tiny piece of gold foil, found in turf by the Norfolk Broads, was covered in mystical symbols.
It was a magical charm, inscribed with a secret message that only Dr. Roger Tomlin of Oxford could crack. He discovered it was a prayer for “well-being, health, and victory,” written for a man named Tiberius Claudius Similis, likely a Roman soldier who wore the amulet for protection. He probably dropped it, losing his lucky charm, an act that would have devastated him, but which preserved his name for history thousands of years later, a rare personal connection to a lost life.
In 2010, a retired chef named Dave Crisp was wandering in a field in Somerset when he made a staggering discovery. He uncovered the largest collection of Roman coins ever found in a single container, a massive pot holding more than 52,000 coins. The excitement was overwhelming; he remembers sitting back on his heels, thinking, “I’ve done it. I’ve found a hoard.
” The coins were acquired by the Museum of Somerset for £320,000, but even two years later, they were still being cleaned, a testament to their sheer volume. It’s thought they may have represented an early form of corporate banking, money collected and buried for safekeeping. Long before that, in 1976, a farmer named John Lewis was plowing a field near Brackley when he uncovered a stunning Roman bust. He thought it was just an old ornament and kept it in a cupboard under the stairs for years, later using it as a fireplace decoration.
Known as “old blue eyes” by the family, this remarkable piece of history sat in complete obscurity until John and his wife took it to a British Museum finds day. Experts were staggered, realizing it was a rare Roman head, and they eventually identified it as the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. The bust was a British-made reproduction of the emperor, with a stylized beard featuring unique, twisted tufts, a provincial artist’s take on imperial portraits. To see if he could pull off the look, presenter Jules even styled his own beard to mimic the emperor’s, covering it in animal fat and wax, all for a cheeky comparison.
Other remarkable objects tell stories of culture and belief. A bronze figurine of a leopard, found outside Monmouth in Wales, was a stunningly preserved wine cup fitting. It likely came from Italy and would have belonged to a high-status Roman general, meant to accompany its owner into the afterlife. Another find, a figurine of a servant named Countes from Tadcaster, was a lucky charm for a Roman soldier far from home, perhaps hoping for good weather.
Sometimes the story isn’t about what was found, but what was lost. In 2010, a metal detectorist in Cumbria struck upon a box of shattered bronze fragments. Reconstructed by auction house Christie’s, they revealed the Crosby Garrett helmet, a unique and magnificent Roman parade helmet designed to shock and awe. A local museum campaigned desperately to raise enough money to buy it, with schoolchildren holding bake sales and emptying their piggy banks.
They managed to raise a phenomenal £1. 7 million, but on auction day, the price kept climbing. The helmet sold for £2 million to a private collector. It has never been seen in public since, a disappearing piece of history that has left a perplexing hole in the archaeological record.
Not all treasures are lost to obscurity. A copper pan engraved with the names of the forts on Hadrian’s Wall tells a story of a soldier named Draco. The pan might have been a military souvenir, a momento of the bleak garrisons where he served. But after 25 years of service, soldiers were given citizenship, and they became free men.
This beautiful object could represent an enslaved man’s liberty, a moment when Draco could choose his own destiny, suggesting he settled down near the place where the pan was found, far from the wall he once guarded. Coins can be surprisingly revealing. When the Chalgrove hoard of 5,000 coins was being cleaned, a conservator spotted one that was completely unexpected. It dated from the 3rd century AD and bore the name of an emperor named Domitianus II, who, up until that moment, was as mythical as King Arthur.
A similar coin, found in France in 1907, had been dismissed as a forgery by a skeptical scholar. Now, for the first time, the British and French coins were brought together and compared side by side. The experts confirmed they were made from the same die, proving they were genuine and that this previously unknown emperor must have had power in Britain as well as France. The small coin established that this leader actually existed, rewriting a small but crucial piece of history.
The stories of emperors can be violent. In 2010, a recycling plant worker found lumps of metal in a field, which he thought were shrapnel from the Second World War. But they turned out to be fragments of a 2,000-year-old, life-sized gilded bronze statue of a horse. Experts believe it was a statue of the Emperor Domitian, whose thirst for power and cruelty made him hated.
After his assassination, the Senate decreed his memory be damned, a *damnatio memoriae*, and his statues were destroyed. The fragments were all that was left of his image, a terrifying testament to how a Roman emperor could be erased from history. Sometimes the finds tell a story of resistance. A bronze helmet, discovered in Kent near the coast, was probably a Roman artifact, likely from Gaul.
It was found in a traditional Iron Age burial site, with fragments of bone inside. Experts examining the bones believe they belonged to a woman. It’s possible this helmet was a war trophy, won by a fierce British woman from a Roman soldier, perhaps during Julius Caesar’s raids. The image of Boudicca, queen of the Iceni, who led a massive revolt against the Romans, makes this discovery all the more potent, suggesting that the woman buried in Kent may have been a warrior whose culture terrified the Romans.
Even the economic power of an empire leaves its mark. A group of Roman coins found near Hadrian’s Wall had an unexpected story to tell. They weren’t used for purchases by locals, who bartered their own goods. Instead, these coins were part of a Roman strategy of bribery and corruption.
They were gifts, tools of control to buy peace and to manipulate local tribes far beyond the frontier. When a new emperor, Septimius Severus, stopped the bribes, it caused chaos and turmoil. It led to the rise of a new, more warlike enemy for the Romans, a people who would eventually be known as Picts, a new group that would help define Scotland’s history. The fusion of cultures appears in jewelry too.
A set of Iron Age jewelry, found in Wales, was a fascinating mix of local traditions and Roman style. The neck collar was a typical Celtic design, but its decoration was highly romanized, showing a fusion of the two cultures. It was a sign that, despite the Roman conquest, the Welsh tribes didn’t simply submit. They cooperated, adopting and adapting the conquerors’ styles, using them to maintain their own identity in the face of occupation.
There are more chilling finds. A Roman slave shackle, designed to chain a person’s feet, was found near an old Roman road leading to Silchester. The presenter, John McCarthy, was himself a hostage in Lebanon in the 1980s, chained for five years. The discovery of the shackle near an amphitheater raised the horrifying possibility that this object was worn by a slave who was brought there to be executed, torn apart by wild animals for the entertainment of the crowd.
The shackle stands as a brutal and poignant reminder of how easily freedom can be ripped away. Finally, in a field in Hertfordshire, a unique collection of gold plaques and a tiny figurine were discovered. The figurine was revealed to be a goddess who had never been known before. Her name was Senuna, a new goddess for Roman Britain, a blending of local and Roman beliefs.
Her discovery suggests that in this remote corner of the empire, faith was a personal, evolving thing, and that even a goddess could be born, worshipped, and then hidden away, waiting two thousand years to be found.
