1/6) The massive Trier Gold Hoard: 2,650 Roman aurei coins weighing 18.5 kg. Unearthed in 1993 in the cellar of a Roman administrative building of ancient Augusta Treverorum. The hoard was deposited during the Antonine Plague or 'Plague of Galen' in the late 2nd century AD. 
2/6) The gold hoard was discovered by chance during the excavation of an underground parking garage in the city. It is the largest preserved Roman Imperial gold hoard.
3/6) Study has shown the Trier hoard was first deposited in 167 AD at the height of the Antonine Plague: a catastrophic pandemic that killed an estimated 5 million people around the Roman Empire including, in all likelihood, the Roman Emperor Lucius Verus.
4/6) From the hoard a beautiful aureus struck under Hadrian, commemorating his “divine parents” with a dual portrait of Trajan and his wife Plotina.
5/6) The 2,650 aurei of the Trier Gold Hoard date from 63 AD (Nero) to 196 AD (Septimius Severus - pictured) including 84 previously unknown coin types.
6/6) The hoard appears to have been added to over the decades, with a final group of aurei added in 197 AD as the usurper Clodius Albinus besieged the city. At this point, the administrator of the hoard seems to have taken the knowledge of its existence with him to the grave.
The incredible hoard can seen at the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier. #roman #numismatics
