An Anglo-Saxon-made replica of a Roman solidus coin featuring the emperor Honorius (AD393-423) has been discovered in Attleborough, Norfolk, by a detectorist. Coin expert, Dr Adrian Marsden of the Norfolk Historic Environment Service, described the late 5th or early 6th-century find as “very unusual”. Although the Roman Empire, now Christian, was “in freefall”, Anglo-Saxons were copying the Christian image of the coin. This is ironic, Marsden said, because the Anglo-Saxons of this period were pagan and “certainly not literate”.
Anglo-Saxons began to arrive in England from AD410, and by AD500 were being fiercely resisted, marking the start of a period formerly referred to as the Dark Ages. Despite the collapse of the Roman empire, they would have come across many impressive Roman artefacts and buildings, which may account for their replica of the solidus coin.
The 23mm by 20.2mm gold pendant has been declared treasure by a coroner and is believed to have been part of a burial rather than having been lost. Due to the pendant’s location, Dr Marsden believes that it came from the owner’s grave that was ploughed over the centuries until it rose close enough to the surface for the detectorist find it. It is expected that a museum will acquire the object.
Dr Marsden said it was “blundered lettering” on the pendant, which shows a figure on one side holding a banner with Christian symbols and D N HONORIVS P F AVG on the other. The numismatist added that the imitations seen in the period were primarily of Roman gold coins being repurposed as coins with similar suspension loops, and that making a coin from scratch was “very unusual
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