The largest known hoard of Iron Age gold coins to be deposited during the reign of the King Dubnovellaunos, who ruled the Trinovantes between 25 B.C. and A.D. 10, will be offered in an auction at Noonans Mayfair (16 Bolton Street) on March 4.

The 16 coins will be auctioned individually and they are expected to realize in the region of £25,000.

Known as The Bury St. Edmunds hoard, it was found in two parcels by Tom Licence, professor of medieval history and literature at the University of East Anglia, in a field near Bury.

The find

In the autumn of 2024, Licence, who is 46 years old, discovered 16 Iron Age gold full staters and one quarter-stater, and these were promptly reported to the Finds Liaison Officer and were declared treasure. He returned to the site a few months later and found one more stater.

Tom started metal detecting as a young boy but took a more serious interest in the hobby in 1994 as a teenager. While walking through Rye in East Sussex, he found a Charles I Rose farthing in a flower bed, which immediately captured his imagination.

When Tom isn’t busy with his Academic work — he is an expert in Anglo-Saxon history and about to publish a book on King Harold — he is out detecting alongside his trusty ‘Mandy’ Manticore detector.

From the hoard, Licence and the landowner have chosen to keep a single stater each. After splitting the money with the landowner, Licence plans to use some of the money raised to support local archaeological work in Suffolk.

Family in mind

Licence explains the find: “The reason I went to this new field was because my niece was keen to go metal detecting, so I wanted to find a suitable location to take her. It was when I was there that I noticed that the field rose from a nearby stream in a gentle gradient and had dark silty soil, which was in a perfect condition on a dry October day, so I decided to use my trusty metal detector!”

He continued: “Later that afternoon, I started to get signals and found two pieces of Viking hack silver. I continued searching and was astounded to find a gold stater, and after changing the settings and going up and down rows that I had marked out  — I went into hunting mode and found another six staters! When it got to sunset, I called the landowner and took the coins to show him and his wife. Later that week, I returned to the field and found more coins — making a total of 17 coins!” He finishes: “I was born in Essex, but my family has roots in the Bury St. Edmunds area, and I like to imagine that the coins were buried by one of my ancestors!”

Specialist weighs in

As Alice Cullen, coin specialist at Noonans said: “All of the staters in the hoard are inscribed, and they can be attributed to two figures: Addedomaros and Dubnovellaunos. In the catalogue, we follow the arrangement in Chris Rudd’s Ancient British Coins and assign these leaders to different tribes: the Catuvellauni and the Trinovantes respectively. As ever with British Iron Age numismatics, this simplicity masks a lot of hidden complexity. Addedomaros’ kingdom appears to have expanded to include much Trinovantian territory and it is possible that he was Dubnovellaunos’ father, an argument supported by stylistic links between their coinages. Addedomaros was probably the first king north of the Thames to produce an inscribed coinage, but beyond that we know frustratingly little about him.” She continues: “Dubnovellaunos ruled the Trinovantes, and at some point, held sway in Kent as well; he is mentioned in the Emperor Augustus’ Res Gestae as having sought refuge in Rome. The findspot of this hoard, which sits a day’s walk from Colchester to the south and Bury St. Edmunds to the north, is directly at the heart of Trinovantian territory. John Sills has suggested, on account of die sequencing, that the Bury St. Edmunds Hoard was concealed during the reign of Dubnovellaunos, for the hoard omits the ruler’s last two issues. The chronology of the reigns of both rulers is confusing and continues to be debated by scholars; the dates given in this catalogue are again those used in Rudd’s ABC.”

Why this location

In his discussion of microtopography Philip de Jersey (2014) notes that “among the hoards deposited on the brow of a hill there appears to be a clear preference for burial on east-facing slopes.” This hoard fits that pattern perfectly, with coins discovered just below the crest of a slope on the east-facing side, and no more coins were found to the north. Licence believes the “morning sun illuminating the hillcrest and a spring rising at the same spot” is a combination that could point to this hoard, and others like it, having a religious significance.

Favorites

Among the highlights of the hoard are two coins that are Licence’s particular favorites. These are the Addedomaros wheel stater, on which, as John Sills notes, more of the legend is visible than on any other example, and this piece confirms the spelling of the name on that early type, which was previously uncertain. It is offered as Lot 2013 and estimated at £3,000 to £3,600. Licence’s other favorite is a Dubnovellaunos stater with a previously unrecorded die. Offered as lot 2009, it is is expected to realize between £1,500 and £2,000