SECTION 3.3:CLAYDON PIKE COINS by Cathy King

INTRODUCTION
THE COINS
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Introduction

Claydon Pike is a rural settlement characterised by a series of rectangular enclosures and aisled buildings. It has been suggested that it became a Roman depot linked with the cultivation of hay meadows. A small villa was built in the early fourth century and a circular shrine and small cemetery belong to this phase. The Roman coins from Claydon Pike can be analysed in three groups: coins from the settlement, coins from the Shrine and the total assemblage (Tables 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5). There were 484 coins from the settlement and 248 from the shrine giving a total of 732 making this the largest number of coins in any group from the Cotswold Water Park area.

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The coins

The Claydon Pike site differs from Somerford Keynes in a number of key aspects. Firstly, it has a much smaller proportion of early coins. If the site is considered as a whole only 46 coins (6.3%) of the coins were minted before AD 260 by contrast with the 97 coins (34.9%) from Somerford Keynes. Secondly, apart from one denarius from the Roman Republic, all of the silver recovered belongs in the years after AD 192. There are eight coins from the years AD 193-AD 260, five of which were either plated or the bronze core of a plated piece and two siliquae from the later fourth century one each of Valentinian I from Lyons and Arcadius from Trier. All of the silver coins came from the settlement site with the exception of a core of a plated antoninianus of Caracalla found in the shrine. Although the proportion of early bronze coins at 4.9% is much lower than that from Somerford Keynes (26.6%), there is a reasonable scatter from the first and second centuries, the majority of which comes from the settlement site. If the site became an official Roman depot or military estate in the second century, as was the original supposition, there is little if anything in the coin loss pattern that reflects this status.

The concentration of the coinage in the later third and fourth centuries within the periods of peak coin loss established by Reece and others for Britain as a whole is also compatible with the rural nature of the settlement and the presence of the villa and the shrine. Although the number of coins found in the shrine datable to AD 260-AD 296 is low (10 coins, 4%) the major periods in the fourth century are better represented: AD 330-348, 18.9% (47 coins); AD 348-AD 364, 14.1% (85 coins); AD 364-AD 378, 43.5% (108 coins), AD 388-AD 402, 4% (10 coins) (Table 6). Thus 210 coins (84.6%) out of the total of 248 pieces belong in these years of which 200 (80.6%) were minted between AD 330 and AD 402. The number of coins from the shrine that can be dated to AD 364 to AD 378 is unusually high at 43%. Of the CWP sites only Campfield had a higher proportion (13 coins, 59.1%) but the total number of coins recovered from Campfield is only 22 and the sample size is too small for this to have any statistical validity added to which the group probably represents a small hoard. The shrine at Lowbury also had an exceptionally high proportion of coins (33.5%) of coins from the years AD 364-AD 378. (Davies, 1985, pp. 1-13) By comparison the mausoleum from the Bancroft Villa site had 22.5% of coins from this period which is paralleled by the 25% from the temple at Nettleton. Both totals are significantly lower than that at Claydon Pike.

The possibility that the coins from the shrine contain a dispersed hoard of coins largely composed of pieces minted between AD 364 and AD 378 must be considered since it might explain the abnormally high number of coins from this period. All of the coins datable between AD 364 and AD 378 occurred within a five-metre radius and most were clustered in a corner of the shrine. This evidence seems to support the supposition that the pattern of coin loss within the shrine may have been distorted by the intrusion of a hoard. However, shrines, fourth-century temples and villas tend to have high numbers of coins from the fourth century AD which can peak in the years AD 364-AD 378 and the degree to which this pattern seems to suggest that high numbers of late coins are to be expected in a shrine argues against the coins in the FCP shrine being a hoard. Lockyear’s statistical analysis of Reece’s 140 sites has demonstrated that coins from villas tend to be concentrated in the years AD 296 to AD 378 (Reece’s periods 15 to 19) while temple sites are associated with coins of the years AD 348 to AD 364 and/or AD 364 to AD 378 (Reece’s periods 18 and 19). (Lockyear 2000, 415; Reece 1991)

From the site as a whole, there are 44 third-century imitations which represent 29% of the total of the third-century pieces; 95% of them are copies of coins minted in the years AD 260 and AD 284. The fourth century copies fall into two groups: those which copy coins of AD 330 to AD 348 and those which copy coins of AD 348 to AD 360. For the earlier period they represent 12.9% of the total and for the later 54.9%. Fourth century imitations from the shrine have a similar pattern to that of the whole site although they have a smaller proportion of coins (8.5%) copying pieces of the years AD 330 to AD 348 and a higher one (68.6%) for the years AD 348 to AD 360.

The fourth-century mint distribution pattern of the coins from the shrine and the settlement conforms reasonably with the norm for British sites (Tables 4 and 5). The mint of London is less dominant for the first quarter than is usual but after its closure in the 320s until about AD 350, Trier was clearly the main mint supplying Britain. For the remainder of the century the main mints represented were Lyons and Arles. A comparison of the mint distribution pattern for this period at Lowbury provides an interesting parallel. (Davies, 1985) In the years between AD 364 and AD 378, Arles supplied 56.7% of the coins found in the shrine at Claydon Pike and 59.5% of those at Lowbury while the percentage of Lyons coins for these years is much lower at Claydon Pike (8.1%) than at Lowbury (23.9%) Coins from Aquileia (16.2%) and Siscia (13.5%) are also represented in this period as well.

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Bibliography

Davies, J.A., 1985. ‘The Roman coins from Lowbury Hill, Oxoniensia, 50, 1-13

Lockyear, K., 2000. ‘Site finds in Roman Britain: A Comparison of Techniques’, Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 19, 4, 397-423

Reece, R., 1980. ‘Religion, Coins and Temples’, in W. Rodwell (ed.), Temples, Church and Religion in Roman Britain, BAR British Series 77, i, 115-128, Oxford

Reece, R., 1991. Roman Coins from 140 Sites in Britain, Cirencester

Reece, R., 1993. ‘British Sites and their Roman coins’, Antiquity, 67, no. 257, 863-869

Reece, R., 1995. ‘Site-finds in Roman Britain’, Britannia, 26, 179-206

Reece, R., 1996. ‘The Interpretation of Site Finds – a Review’, in King, C.E. and Wigg, D.G., Coin Finds and Coin Use in the Roman World, The Thirteenth Oxford Symposium on Coinage and Monetary History, 25-27-3-1993, Berlin, 341-355

Reece, R., 2002. The Coinage of Roman Britain, Stroud

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