Ancient Treasures
Page 9
The New York trial (well summarized in Kate Fitz Gibbon’s Who Owns the Past?) revealed a number of facts that do not reflect well on Hungary’s claim to the Sevso Treasure. In September 1990 József Sümegh’s father informed the Hungarian authorities under oath that after seeing the publicity in Hungary surrounding the possibility of a great Roman treasure being found in the country he thought there must be a connection with the death of his son, who was an enthusiastic collector of old coins and medals. Mr. Sümegh urged the Hungarian authorities to investigate the matter, and it was after this that the case of József Sümegh’s suicide was reopened.
At the trial there were a number of witnesses called on by Hungary’s lawyers who claimed to have seen pieces of the treasure at Sümegh’s family home in the late 1970s. One of the witnesses was someone we have already met: István Strasszer. Strasszer, a stonemason, testified that he had seen several pieces of the silver at Sümegh’s home in 1978 or 1979 and identified the cosmetic casket specifically. At a previous interview with Hungarian authorities, Strasszer had produced a drawing of the casket, giving its dimensions. A model replica of the casket based exactly on Strasszer’s measurements was constructed and presented at the trial. Unfortunately for the Hungarians, this model was a fraction of the size of the real Sevso casket. Another witness from Polgárdi who claimed to have seen the treasure was Joszef Harmat, who testified that he had seen the copper cauldron on a shelf in Sümegh’s home. Harmat identified the cauldron from a picture of it in a fully restored state, the result of extensive restoration work began in 1988. However, in the late 1970s, when Harmat claimed to have seen it, the cauldron in its unrestored state would have been unrecognizable, and Harmat would not have been able to identify it.
Another witness called by Hungary was retired schoolteacher Istvan Fodelmesi, who seems to be the same person as Zoltan Fodelmesi, the local school principal who Peter Landes-man describes meeting in his Atlantic Monthly article. In 1991 Fodelmesi had been questioned twice by Hungarian authorities and swore under oath that he had never seen the Sevso Treasure in Sümegh’s possession; in fact, he denied any knowledge of the treasure at all. However, two weeks before the New York trial, Fodelmesi suddenly changed his story to the version he told Peter Landesman. Conspicuous, by their absence, from those Hungary called as witnesses at the trial were members of József Sümegh’s family living at the house when the treasure was allegedly being kept there. Perhaps this was because the Hungarian authorities had previously taken sworn statements from every member of Sümegh’s family, and they all denied having seen any silver either in the house or in the possession of József. This is all the more curious when we remember József Sümegh’s younger step-brother Ishtevan telling Peter Landesman about using sandpaper to clean a piece of the treasure. Furthermore, Ishtevan would have been only around 7 years old at the time of this alleged incident.
All of this underhand dealing seems to bear out the statement that the record of the 1993 trial “is rife with allegations of witness interference and fears (real or not) of government retaliation.”5 What appears to be witness manipulation on Hungary’s part does not of course rule out Hungary as the source of the Sevso Treasure, but it does cast an uneasy shadow over their claim. All the evidence points to the fact that the tragic suicide of a 24-year-old man was transformed by the Hungarian authorities into a murder connected with the Sevso Treasure, in an attempt to provide a back story for its discovery in their country. Since the New York Court of Appeals rejected its claim in 1993, Hungary has provided no new evidence nor taken any further legal action regarding the Sevso Treasure. As it stands at the moment, Hungary’s claim to the treasure remains plausible but unproven.
One of the main difficulties proving a provenance for the Sevso silver is that, although there have been a number of discoveries made of late-Roman high-quality silver tableware, very few pieces are of a similar size. Furthermore, those finds that are comparable have been discovered mainly in the Western provinces of the Roman Empire. Neither Hungary nor Croatia has any record of material similar to the Sevso Hoard ever being found on their soil.
One similar piece to the Sevso Hunting Plate is the Great Dish from the Mildenhall late-Roman Treasure, a stunning hoard of highly decorated fourth-century Roman silver tableware found in Mildenhall, Suffolk, in the east of England (see Chapter 8). The Great Dish is 23.8 inches in diameter and is elaborately decorated with the face of the sea-god Oceanus at its center, surrounded by scenes detailing the worship and mythology of Bacchus. Other items in the Mildenhall Treasure are also decorated with pagan mythical scenes, and some of the spoons in the collection bear the Christian Chi-Rho monogram.
The closest parallel for the Sevso Hunting Plate is the Kaiseraugst Plate, part of the Kaiseraugst Treasure, a rich, fourth-century hoard discovered in a Roman frontier fort on the river Rhine, east of Basel in Switzerland. The Kaiseraugst Plate, also known as the Achilles Plate, is 23.2 inches in diameter and is beautifully decorated with a central medallion showing scenes from the early life Achilles. The Kaiseraugst silver hoard appears to have been amassed over a period of time by high-ranking Roman officers, as the name “Marcellianus” appears on 13 of the items, and the items includes gifts from two Roman emperors. The treasure was probably hidden away in advance of an attack by the Alamanni, an alliance of Germanic tribes living around the Upper Rhine River. Inscriptions on a number of the items show that many of the silver pieces were made in Thessaloniki, northern Greece, also a possible place of manufacture for the Sevso Treasure. As with the Sevso Treasure, the motifs depicted on the silver tableware from Kaiseraugst are hunters, landscapes, and scenes from Greek mythology.
Another ceremonial gift from a Roman emperor to a civic or military official is the magnificent Missorium of Theodosius I. This huge, elaborately decorated Roman silver plate, at 29 inches in diameter, even larger than the Sevso Hunting Plate, was probably crafted in Constantinople in AD 388 for the 10th anniversary of the reign of Theodosius I, Roman Emperor from AD 379 to AD 395, and the last to rule over both the eastern and the western halves of the Roman Empire. The Missorium was part of a hoard of silver objects discovered in 1847 in Almendralejo, close to Mérida, formerly the Roman city of Emerita Augusta, in western-central Spain.
The relatively large amounts of rich late-Roman hoards discovered in the UK (covered in Chapter 8), combined with the fact that the Sevso hoard first appeared in London, has prompted some researchers, including Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, to bring up the question of a possible British origin for the treasure. The Mildenhall Treasure has already been mentioned, but rich hoards from Thetford, Water Newton, and elsewhere in the UK are also relevant. The Roman silver hoard known as the Water Newton Treasure was discovered near the fortified Roman garrison town of Durobrivae, at Water Newton in Cambridgeshire, in the east of England. Some of the pieces from this fourth-century collection are inscribed with Chi-Rho monograms, and the ornately decorated silver jug resembles the ewers from the Sevso hoard. Another rich hoard containing silver tableware, is the mid- to late-fourth-century AD Roman hoard from Thetford, Norfolk, eastern England, which also yielded exquisite Roman gold jewelry.
Also important in the context of late-Roman silver hoards is the Corbridge Treasure, found in the River Tyne at Corbridge, once the Roman fort and town of Coria, in Northumberland, northeast England. A magnificent late-fourth-century silver tray, known as the Corbridge Lanx, from this hoard depicts a shrine to Apollo, with Apollo’s twin sister, Artemis (Diana), and Athena (Minerva) also in attendance. The tray was probably manufactured somewhere in the Mediterranean, North Africa, or Asia Minor. No other pieces from the hoard have been located, but a number were sketched or described when they were originally found in 1735, and at least one of them bore Christian symbols. In 1993 the British Museum bought the Lanx from the Duke of Northumberland for a fee reported to be in excess of £1.8 million.
Despite these examples, however, without further evidence it is a fruitless exercise to guess at t
he provenance of the Sevso Treasure, which could in reality be anywhere in the vast Roman Empire.
In March 2007, The Art Newspaper claimed to have had access to documents from the 1980s that revealed the existence of previously unknown pieces of the Sevso Treasure. In an article entitled “The Silver Missing From the Seuso Hoard?” Cristina Ruiz alludes to a document from Halim Korban addressed to Guernroy Ltd., a division of the Royal Bank of Canada in Guernsey, in the Channel Islands. This document mentions “remaining silver objects from the hoard (187 silver gilt spoons, 37 silver gilt drinking cups, and 5 silver bowls)”6, seemingly indicating that these objects were originally part of the Sevso Treasure, but had been split up from the 14 known pieces purchased by Lord Northampton.
Another document cited by The Art Newspaper was a letter dated April 6, 1987, from another Guernsey-based concern, Ferico Trust Ltd., to Ramiz Rizk, the previously mentioned associate of Lord Northampton’s lawyer, Peter Mimpriss. The letter, sent to a PO box in Lebanon, mentions that Rizk has “agreed to obtain export licenses for the remainder of the hoard which we understand to be various cups and spoons, at a price under half the cost of the first three licenses.”7 There were also rumors of the existence of two other silver plates, one with an engraved Chi-Rho in the center and the other known as the Constantine Plate, which showed a portrait of Constantine I (Roman Emperor from AD 306 to AD 337) in the center, that might be part of the Sevso Treasure. However, despite the documents and the speculation, Lord Northampton’s lawyer Ludovic De Walden said in a statement to The Art Newspaper, that there was “no direct evidence now or before of there being any pieces forming part of the Sevso hoard beyond the 14 pieces.”8
Later that same year came more speculation regarding the Sevso Treasure. In July 2007, the Croatian weekly newspaper Globus and the Hungarian weekly Budapester Zeitung carried a story claiming that Hungarian-born American businessman George Soros was buying the Sevso Treasure from Lord Northampton and donating it to the National Museum in Budapest. However, the reports were soon denied both by representatives of Soros in New York and by Lord Northampton, who stated categorically that the he was not selling the treasure to Soros. Nothing has been heard of this alleged sale since.
Although most museums in the world would consider the remarkable pieces of Roman silver in the Sevso hoard an important centerpiece of their collection, the lack of a recognized provenance, the forged export licenses, and the court claims by Croatia and Hungary mean that museums (or private buyers, for that matter) are unlikely to acquire the silver any time soon. The end result of the controversial and sad tale of the Sevso Treasure is that these spectacular examples of Roman craftsmanship will remain locked away in a bank vault, inaccessible for study and for all intents and purposes lost to the world.
CHAPTER 8
Roman Treasures From England: The Hoxne Hoard and the Mildenhall Treasure
The Roman occupation of Britain lasted from AD 43 until about AD 410. During this period various people, from soldiers to wealthy citizens, from thieves to craftsmen, buried their wealth in the soil, either for safekeeping, as a votive offering to the gods, or, if the objects were obtained illegally, as a temporary hiding place. However, it is often not possible to know the individual circumstances in which some hoards were deposited, and in these cases we can only glean information by comparison with other, similar hoards. Roman hoards can contain tableware in gold, silver, bronze, or pewter, gold jewelry; precious stones; gold, silver, bronze, or copper coins; inscribed silver or gold plaques; iron or bronze weaponry; and scrap metal. Hoards from the first two centuries of relatively stable Roman rule are more likely to be deposits of wealth in a safe place (akin to a modern bank), and items were probably added to and taken out of the hoards during this period.
However, a significant amount of hoards date to the last half century or so of the Roman period in Britain, a time of political instability in the country and of frequent raids by Picts, Scots, and Saxons. With such an uncertain future, it was natural for people to hide their wealth in a secret place, though obviously not everyone was able to return to collect their cache. Many extremely rich hoards were deposited during the tumultuous last decades of Roman Britain, such as those from Hoxne and Mildenhall (both in Suffolk, in the east of England), the rich jeweler’s hoard from Thetford in Norfolk, and the huge cache of sliced-up silver from Traprain Law, near Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland. The latter example shows a regard for the value of the metal rather than the objects in the hoard and may represent loot from a battle or a raid. The Water Newton Hoard, from Cambridgeshire in the east of England, is a hoard of fourth-century silver that provides vital evidence for Christianity in Roman Britain. Indeed, the items in the hoard have been described as the earliest group of Christian liturgical silver ever found in the Roman Empire and indicate the presence of a small private chapel in the area where the treasure was found.
Coin hoards are especially common from Roman Britain, with more than 1,200 examples known and more being discovered each week with the increase in the popularity of metal detecting. Because the coins depict the current Roman Emperor, they can be used to date the hoard in which they are found fairly securely, though only the earliest possible date for the hoard (obtained from the oldest coin) can be known for sure; the latest date is more difficult to determine, as coins may have been in use for decades after they were minted. Coin hoards can give us vital information about Romano-British history, and one particularly important example is the Chalgrove Hoard, discovered in 2003 about 10 miles southeast of Oxford. The hoard consists of bronze and silver coins dating from AD 251 to 279, and includes an extraordinary coin of a previously unknown Roman emperor named Domitianus, a usurper emperor whose reign only lasted a few weeks.
The Shapwick Hoard of 9,262 coins, discovered in 1998 in Shapwick, Somerset, in the southwest of England, provides a vast date range of coins from 31 BC to 30 BC up until AD 224. The collection includes 260 denarii (small silver coins) of Mark Antony from 31 BC, and two rare coins that depicted Manlia Scantilla, the wife of Didius Julianus, Roman emperor for nine weeks during the year AD 193. Didius Julianus was murdered in June 193, soon after these coins were minted.
One of the largest Roman coin hoards ever discovered was unearthed near Frome in Somerset, as recently as April 2010, and consists of an astonishing 52,503 silver and bronze coins dating from AD 253 to AD 305. Fascinatingly, experts believe that the massive thin pot that contained the hoard was too fragile to have been used to carry the coins and would need to have been smashed to access the treasure. This fact points to the possibility that the Frome Hoard was a ritual offering to the gods, perhaps by an entire community, judging by the vast amount of coins in the collection.
The Hoxne Hoard
The Hoxne Hoard is the largest cache of late Roman gold found anywhere in the Roman Empire. Discovered by a metal detectorist in Suffolk, in the east of England, in 1992, the incredible collection contains 14,865 late-fourth-century and early-fifth-century Roman gold, silver, and bronze coins, and 200 items of silver tableware and gold jewelry. The hoard amounts to a total of 7.7 pounds of gold and 52.4 pounds of silver, and its current value is estimated at around $4.3 million. As the finder reported his discovery immediately, the cache was professionally excavated by archaeologists and conserved soon afterward, so the vital context of the objects and their condition were preserved. Thanks to the coins in the hoard, we know that the items were deposited in the early fifth century AD, right at the end of the Roman occupation of Britain, which tells us a great deal about an important period in the history of the country when Roman rule was breaking down and a new age was approaching.
On November 16, 1992, retired gardener and amateur metal detectorist Eric Lawes was scanning a field southwest of the village of Hoxne in Suffolk, on the lookout for a hammer that the local tenant farmer, Peter Whatling, had lost. While searching for the hammer, Lawes stumbled upon a cache of metal objects, including gold chains, silver spoons, and coins, some o
f which he dug out and packed into two carrier bags before notifying Whatling of his spectacular find. Lawes and Whatling decided to report the discovery to the landowners, Suffolk County Council, who, due to the importance of the finds, promptly organized an excavation of the site. The excavation, undertaken by Suffolk County Council Archaeology Service (SCCAS), took place the next day in secret in case the location of the hoard became known and the site looted.
But somehow the story got out, and on November 19th the British tabloid The Sun splashed the story across its front page along with a picture of Lawes and his metal detector, and a claim that the treasure was worth £10 million. In characteristically obtuse fashion, the paper also announced the prize of a metal detector to anyone who could answer the question “Who built Hadrian’s Wall? Hadrian, Barretts or Wimpey?” Meanwhile, the excavated treasure from Hoxne, along with Peter Whatling’s missing hammer, was taken to the British Museum. The unwanted publicity surrounding the find forced the British Museum to hold a press conference on November 20th announcing the discovery, which served to dampen the interest of the newspapers, and permitted the curators at the museum to begin to categorize and clean the artifacts from the hoard. Further excavations in and around the find spot took place in September 1993, and also in 1994 due to illegal metal detecting around the site.
On September 3, 1993, a coroner’s inquest declared the Hoxne Hoard a treasure trove. In other words, the treasure was deemed to be of unknown ownership and to have been hidden with the intention of being recovered later. In November the Treasure Trove Reviewing Committee valued the hoard at £1.75 million (today £2.66 million, or $4.3 million), which was paid to Eric Lawes as finder of the treasure. Lawes generously shared his reward with farmer Peter Whatling (which it is now a legal requirement to do). The Hoxne Hoard is now in the British Museum, and the most important items are on display in a Perspex reconstruction of the oak chest and inner boxes in which they were originally deposited.