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NORTHUMBERLAND, ENGLAND—A French volunteer excavator has unearthed an extremely rare gold coin from the fourth-century level of the Roman fort at Vindolanda. “I thought it can’t be true, it was just sitting there as I scraped back the soil, shining, as if someone had just dropped it,” Marcel Albert told Culture 24. The well-worn aureus was minted around A.D. 64 or 65 and bears Nero’s image, so it was in circulation for some 300 years before it was lost. Beads, brooches, rings, leather shoes, arrowheads, pottery, an iron spoon, and a gaming counter have also been recovered this year.
