The coins found in Worcestershire, England. Museums Worcestershire

A hoard of Roman coins worth over $125,000 was found during a construction project in central England.

The stash of gold and silver coins date back to the reign of Rome's Emperor Nero, according to Museums Worcestershire, which is raising funds to bid on the coins and keep them in the county where they were found. The stash of 1,368 coins, known as the Worcestershire Conquest Hoard, was buried in a pot and unearthed by members of the public in late 2023, according to the museum.

"The Hoard is one of the most important archaeological discoveries in Worcestershire in the last 100 years," the museum said.

Most of the coins are silver denarii, according to the museum, and a single gold coin was minted for a British tribe local to the area at the time of its creation. The pot itself was likely made at a pottery kiln in the region, the museum said. The coins "almost certainly" were brought to the area by Roman soldiers, with one theory shared by the museum suggesting that the coins may have belonged to a wealthy local farmer who made his money supplying the army with grain and livestock.

"The hoard was assembled and buried during a brief moment in time when Worcestershire lay right at the edge of an expanding Empire," the museum said.

Dr. Murray Andrews, a lecturer in British archaeology at the University College London, told CBS partner BBC News that the discovery was "remarkable."

"It's the most miraculous thing I've seen over the last 100 years," he said. "It's an important piece of archaeology. It tells us about what was happening here 2000 years ago, when the Malvern hills were maybe the boundary of the Roman Empire."

This is the third hoard of coins to be found in the area in the past 25 years, according to the BBC. In 2011, two metal detectorists found a clay pot full of 3,784 coins, the BBC said, and in 1999, 434 silver coins and 38 pottery fragments were discovered.

If Museums Worcestershire cannot raise the necessary funds, the latest hoard will be returned to the finders or the landowner, and may never go on public display, according to the BBC.

"What a fantastic find and so important for anyone wishing to understand more about the county's heritage," said Chair of the Joint Museums Committee Karen May in a news release. "This is real Worcestershire treasure, and it needs to be seen and enjoyed by Worcestershire residents for generations to come."


Chair of the Trustees of Worcestershire Heritage Art & Museums charity Caroline Naisbitt with one of the coins. Luke Unsworth/Museums Worcestershire

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