This important volume represents a continuation of the series ‘Coin Hoards from Roman Britain’ (CHRB), the 13th volume of which was published 15 years ago in 2010 and was dedicated to coin hoards of the Britannic Empire of Carausius and Allectus. Recent Discoveries similarly covers hoards of a particular period, namely of the Tetrarchy of the late-third/early-fourth century. The period is of great numismatic interest, not only because it marked the recovery of the Britannic provinces by the Central Empire. It also saw the reform of Diocletian in 293/294, which placed the Roman coinage on a new footing after the collapse of the old Augustan system several decades earlier and introduced a new silvered bronze coin, generally referred to today in English scholarship as the nummus. The period is also unusual in that we have important contemporary evidence for administrative measures related to the coinage in the form of the Edictum de pretiis rerum venalium (commonly known as the Edict on Maximum Prices) of 301 and the Aphrodisias Currency Edict that seems to have accompanied it.

The volume goes further than the CHRB series in that it is much more than a simple publication of new British hoards. It consists of three sections: Part 1 has three contextual essays on the coinage and hoards of the period; Part 2 describes the hoards and their discovery, concluding with a survey of Tetrarchic hoards from Britain; catalogues of three of the English hoards compose Part 3.

The stimulus for the publication was the discovery by metal detectorists of the largest and the third largest hoards of Tetrarchic coinage from Britain: Rauceby in 2014 with 3,109 coins and Wold Newton in 2017 with 1,861 coins. Complete catalogues of these two finds are accompanied by a reconsideration of the Fyfield hoard, discovered in 1944 and from which 2,128 coins are known either as physical examples (2,062 coins) or from records (86 coins). These three hoards are presented with complete detailed catalogues. The opportunity was also taken to provide a brief summary of the Sully II hoards from the Vale of Glamorgan, which were found in 2008 but for which a catalogue could not be completed in time for publication because of Covid-19 restrictions. The three recent finds were all reported within the framework of the Portable Antiquities Scheme. Preliminary reports are also presented on the two huge Continental finds: Juillac from the south of France comprising 23,303 coins, and Tomares (Seville) from southern Spain with an estimated 53,187 coins!

The chapters on the individual hoards in Part 2 all reflect the close cooperation between numismatics and archaeology that characterises much of the study of coin hoards today, seeing them as more than just complexes of coins. With one exception, the findspots of all are known exactly, but the hoards were discovered and recovered under very different circumstances so that the information they can provide differs. As a result, they tell us a great deal about how and why such complexes were deposited and not subsequently recovered in antiquity. The Wold Newton hoard was removed from the ground by the finders and no subsequent investigation of the immediate context was possible. However, the coins were left in the container and were excavated in spits in the British Museum so that the internal structure of the hoard could be reconstructed. It seems to have been deposited in the vessel in at least two phases, for the latest coins were found in the upper layers 0–5, but not in the lower 6–9. The landscape around the findspot is well researched and the authors of the report, Vincent Drost and Andrew R. Woods, suggest that deposition might have taken place in a ritual context, based on the unusual composition of the coin series found in the surrounding area and the proximity to a nearby water source, Gypsey Race.

In contrast, the coins of the Rauceby hoard, presented here by Adam Daubney, Sam Bromage and Elanor Ghey, were removed from the container by the finders out of concern for the security of the find, but the vessel was left in the ground, allowing later investigation of the container and the immediate context of the deposit. The deposit itself consisted of the main hoard of 3,097 Tetrarchic nummi and two radiates that pre-dated the reform of Diocletian, as well as a second complex of ten radiates. These were deposited in a carefully constructed stone-lined pit with a platform on which first of all something was burned before the empty vessel was placed on it. The vessel was then filled with the coins. It seems that the slab covering the hoard will have remained visible at ground level, marking the site prominently.

Nothing is known of the immediate context of the Fyfield hoard, but Hubert J. Cloke and Lee Toone suggest on the basis of its composition that it was withdrawn from circulation over a longer period of time. The findspot was situated near an intersection of trackways in an area with several local settlements and a Roman temple, and Cloke and Toone consider the possibility that the hoard represents several cumulative contributions brought together for ritual burial, perhaps by a community. Edward Besley provides a short summary of the double hoard of Sully II. Test pits at the site revealed little about the circumstances of deposition, but confirmed that the two deposits, which have very different compositions but terminal coins only 1–2 years apart, were buried within 3 m of each other.

The three largest British hoards, Wold Newton, Rauceby and Fyfield, all share a similar terminal date, probably soon after the reduction in the weight of the nummus to 1/48 libra in autumn 307. As far as can be told from the 5,899 coins studied from the Tomares hoard, it is a little later, containing three coins minted in Ostia between 309 and October 312, while Juillac closes with coins of 310–311. But all five hoards consist mainly of coins struck before the first reduction of the nummus to 1/40 libra in early 307, whereby coins of the first Tetrarchy prior to the abdication of Diocletian and Maximian in May 305 are proportionally more common than those of the second Tetrarchy, even allowing for the shorter period of issue of the latter. The Sully II hoards are very different, containing later coins and closing c. 318–320.

The reports on the two remarkable Continental hoards by Francis Dieulafait and Vincent Geneviève (Juillac) and Ruth Pliego and Enrique Garciá-Vargas (Tomares) are a very welcome addition to the volume. The first indication of the presence of the complex from Juillac was a linear scatter of coins indicating a ploughed-out hoard. Subsequent field work recovered further coins from the scatter as well as the three amphorae that had originally contained the coins, many of them still in situ. Work on cleaning and cataloguing the hoard is still ongoing and the report is limited to a description of the workflow to date and a summary of the contents by mint.

The Tomares hoard was found during construction work and eight of the 19 Baetican oil amphorae that contained some 53,200 coins were broken by the mechanical excavator and their contents scattered. Subsequent excavation recovered just over 100 additional coins. The amphorae had been buried beneath the floor of a horreum, with the coins divided more or less equally between them. Here too work is still ongoing, and the report covers only some 17% of the hoard: 5,899 coins mostly from the general scatter and one amphora. Examples of the terminal coins to date, issues of Ostia of late 309–October 312, were found in two of the amphorae and the general scatter.

The detailed catalogues for the Wold Newton, Rauceby and Fyfield hoards in Part 3 follow the space-saving format used for the CHRB volumes. The lists are numbered by type, with the number of coins and their weights being given for each type. References are given to RIC, as well as to other important reference works for individual mints, such as Cloke and Toone for London and Bastien for Lyons. For Wold Newton and Fyfield a selection of types is illustrated, for Rauceby one example of each type. For the latter, a list of the 913 examples acquired by the British Museum is also included. Tables with summaries of the contents in varying detail are provided in the texts on the other hoards.

In the first of the contextual essays in Part 1, Richard Abdy presents a comprehensive survey of the coinage of the period, with particular reference to the situation in Britain during the aftermath of the Britannic Empire of Carausius and Allectus and to the introduction of the nummus in the reform of Diocletian. He discusses at length the evidence for the use of folles, moneybags of standard value for which there is evidence from this period (rather confusingly, in German-language scholarship follis is generally used for the actual nummus coin), as well as the value of the nummus. He follows the now conventional view that the nummus was initially valued at 12½ denarii, before being doubled in value to 25 denarii in the Aphrodisias Currency Edict. He proposes that in 318–324 the nummus was halved in value, on the basis of P.Ryl. 607 and a series of coins struck by Licinius in the East in 321–324 (according to RIC; Abdy prefers the date 318–324) marked XII (12½). While P. Ryl. quite clearly states that the Italikon nomisma is to be halved in value around this time, the coins themselves are more problematic. They were only produced by Licinius in the East, not by Constantine in the West. Essentially, they reflect an east–west split in the coinage into two systems (Licinius did not adopt the Constantinian solidus). Most importantly, the XII coins contained virtually no silver and had a radiate crown rather than the laurel wreath of the nummus. Callu quite persuasively interprets them as half nummi rather than as evidence that Licinius reduced the value of the nummus itself.

The range of contributions by the different authors provides a reminder of the challenges that the interpretation of hoards present, in particular as evidence for the life and use of coins in antiquity. For example, on the basis of the contents of amphorae 10 and 11, where coins of different dates were found at different levels, Pliego and Garciá-Vargas suggest that the amphorae were filled with the coins at the same time and buried in a single event. This contrasts starkly with Cloke and Toone’s interpretation of the Fyfield hoard (which has a similar chronological profile) as possibly consisting of several cumulative contributions brought together for ritual burial. But while the contents of these two hoards have very similar profiles, some hoards of very similar date have very different profiles, for example Sully II. This is due to the innately selective nature of hoards, so that any attempt to reconstruct the contemporary circulation pool and how this changed with the introduction of the nummus and its subsequent reduction in weight and size is fraught with difficulties. This becomes further apparent in the contribution by Andrew Brown on the coins of the period from the Portable Antiquities Scheme. While the mint distribution in the hoards and the PAS finds are very similar, there are also significant differences. The fractions of the nummus are appreciably more frequent in the PAS finds than in the hoards, as are copies of the nummus, suggesting that such coins may have been deliberately excluded from hoards.

Finally, it should be noted that the volume presents a number of very rare new types and variants, in particular from the PAS dataset. Recent Discoveries is an excellent volume that not only presents remarkable new finds, it also provides important insights into coinage and its use at a turning-point in the history of Britannia.