RICH - Roman Imperial Coin Hoards

RICH - Roman Imperial Coin Hoards

Prof. Michael Crawford, University College London, in cooperation with Fundmünzen der Antike


RICH is a bibliography of coin hoards from the Roman Imperial period. It was originally assembled by Michael Crawford in continuation of his book Coin Hoards of the Roman Republic.

However far one may deconstruct the concept of Romanisation, two facts (at least) remain: the dominance, from Britain to Syria, by the middle of the first century AD, of a single, Roman, monetary system; and the discovery in modern times of thousands of hoards of Roman coins, mainstream and provincial, which are the most visible concrete manifestation of that system. The purpose of this data-base is to make available bibliographical information about these coin hoards, as a tool in the comparative study of monetary use, monetary circulation, and monetary history, over the whole world ruled by, and in contact with, the Roman Empire; we attach particular importance to the presence of material from Italy, the centre of the Roman Empire, and to the inclusion of hoards of provincial, as well as mainstream issues. We have sought to include in the first instance those hoards which are of substantial size, and whose contents are reasonably well known; however, we have also included hoards that do not meet either or both of these criteria, but that are interesting because of their rarity or uniqueness in their particular context. as well as small or imperfectly known hoards that have come our way. On the other hand, the material includes a number of hoards that are unpublished, but that one of us has seen on display in a museum; but any systematic study of these will in our view for the foreseeable future belong in chronologically or regionally specialized studies.

We are beginning by making available material on hoards closing between Tiberius and Septimius Severus. We look forward to receiving additions and corrections to this and future tranches of hoard material; hoards closing with Augustus may be found in Roman Republican Coin Hoards, an updated version of which will in the near future be made progressively available on the Imagines Italicae web-site.

The information provided here is generally as initially recorded by Michael Crawford, but this will gradually be standardised and further details added.