Why chose one favourite thing when you can have a whole hoard?
I find the Morton hoard of Roman coins intriguing and fascinating. They have survived centuries yet we can still relate to them today. I love that our coins are not so different with Latin inscriptions and the Queen’s head. I also guess that they appeal to the magpie in me in that they are shiny real silver – no token metal coins there.
The coins are also full of mystery. I try to imagine who they might have belonged to. It was a lot of money at the time. Was it their life savings? Did they bury them to keep them safe but something happened to them before they could retrieve them? We’ll never know but it fuels my imagination. Their loss is the museum’s gain.
As we’re starting to use cash less and less and payments happen with the swipe of a card, these coins remain. They are physical and beg through the glass case to be touched. I hope we will never lose actual money in the future. I hate to imagine a 21st century hoard in a future museum but I guess the Romans never thought it would happen to theirs. Anything is possible.