Two new denarius hoards from the island of Lolland

Abstract

Since 2009, a number of Roman denarii from the 1st, 2nd and 3rd centuries AD have been discovered on the Danish island of Lolland. Among them, two denarius hoards contained, respectively, approximately 110 and 46 coins. Previously, only few imported objects from the Late Roman Iron Age were known from Lolland, in stark contrast to the large amount of imported prestigious artefacts from the preceding Early Roman Iron Age. These denarius finds shed new light on an otherwise poorly understood time period in the region, especially with regard to the possible networks of trade and exchange in which the local population took part. As the presence of denarii in an Iron Age context is often interpreted as a sign of contacts ultimately extending beyond the bounds of present-day Denmark, this article explores the possibility that the in casu denarius finds from Lolland point to the existence of local settlements participating in the flow of elite exchange during the 3rd and possibly also 4th centuries AD.