Hey Diggers,
There was so much Roman activity around here for about 700 years that relics and coins can be found just about anywhere you detect. The Romans loved hilltops (probably for their strategic location). I was detecting a hilltop and found a few Roman coins, a Roman sandal nail, and a bronze goddess figurine (maybe Aphrodite?). This particular area has been hunted to death for about 30 years! I found all the targets in iron patches and most were about 9 inches deep. The figurine was over a foot deep!
For the figurine I used Andre's pencils to very slowly chip away the crud to reveal the patina below. It took me almost 2 hours! The coins are not well preserved and are so fragile that I could only use ammonia to clean them. Any kind of mechanical cleaning would have destroyed the fragile patina.
The guy I was detecting with, Mike, found a beautiful silver Denarius from about A.D. 190 and an iron arrowhead for a crossbow bolt!
Here's some pics and thanks for looking. HH, Dave.
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