The Boscoreale Treasure

Skeleton cups of the Boscoreale Treasure

The Boscoreale Treasure is a large collection of exquisite silver and gold Roman objects discovered in the ruins of an ancient villa at Boscoreale, near Pompeii. It consists of over a hundred pieces of silver, as well as gold coins and jewellery.

Among those who escaped Mt. Vesuvius was the owner of Villa Pisanella, a popular wine producing villa. It is believed that the owner was Lucius Caecilius Iucundus, a wealthy merchant and banker who was the son of a freed slave. In 1895, 109 gold and silver plates and hundreds of gold aurei were found. The coins were stored in an empty cistern in the wine cellar. With a general exchange rate of one aureus as pay for one month of work, it is a significant sum.

These coins are known as “Boscoreale” aurei because of the distinctive toning found on many of them. Gold itself is inert, but when made into coins, it is alloyed with small amounts of silver and copper which are susceptible to toning. Over the 1,800 years that the coins spent buried beneath the ash and pumice from Vesuvius, some examples developed significant toning.