A man abroad lost his hammer, and when his friend helped him find it with a metal detector, he found a batch of valuable treasures. Because their village is called Hawkeson, this treasure is also known as the "Hawkson Treasure". The most precious of these treasures is not a large number of gold and silver jewelry, but four pepper bottles, why is this? Let's explore it with xiaobian.
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In 1992, in the village of Hoxon in Suffolkshire, England, there was a man named Peter and Waterlin. On this day, when he was preparing to repair the house, he found that he could not find the hammer anywhere. His friends Eric and Rouse like wild adventures, and recently bought a metal detector, and when they heard that Peter had lost his hammer, he volunteered to use a detector to help him find it.
After some exploration, the two eventually found the hammer under a pile of dead branches. Just as Rouse was about to put away the probe, he didn't expect it to react more strongly. Rouse knew that there must be a lot of metal buried nearby.
The two men found a shovel and began to dig into the ground, and before long, the shovel touched a metal-like object. Pulling open the dirt, a large pile of golden and silver utensils almost did not blind the eyes of the two people. They rushed to report it to the authorities, and the shocking "Hoxon Treasure" was unearthed.
After excavation and counting, in addition to 569 gold coins, 14272 silver coins, and 29 pieces of gold jewelry, there are more than 100 pieces of gold and silver utensils such as cups, spoons, pepper bottles and so on. According to expert research, these gold and silver objects belong to the late Roman era, and the Hockson cellar is also the largest gold and silver cellar in the late Roman era in the United Kingdom, of which the total gold is 3.5 kg and the total silver is 23.75 kg. Although the oak boxes and inner boxes that originally housed the treasure have long since decayed, archaeologists know from traces of remnants of organic matter that the buried artifacts were carefully sorted and packed in small boxes of yew and cherry wood.
After the excavations were completed, the excavations from The Hoxon Cellars were sent to the British Museum for display according to the layout inside the box at the time of its discovery. Of all these gold and silverware, the experts were most interested in the four "Hawkeson pepper bottles" – they were designed as "Roman NobleWomen", "Hercules and Anteus", "Goats", and "Hounds Catching Rabbits".
The reason why they are classified as pepper bottles is because they have discs with holes at the bottom, and the openings on the discs can be rotated and adjusted from small to large, which is basically the same function as our current pepper bottles. Of course, "pepper bottles" are just the customary names for them now, in fact they may be used to hold any spice powder that was popular at that time, and pepper was the most important spice at that time.
Based on the minting time of the gold and silver coins unearthed in the Hoxon Vault, experts speculate that the treasure belongs to around 337 AD, when Rome was in an unstable era of war, so it was extremely luxurious to fill 4 pepper bottles with various spices. For their owners, spices such as pepper may be worth as much and important as the pepper bottle itself.
Because Rome did not produce pepper at that time, and the nobles were eager for pepper, there were mercenary merchants who wade through the mountains and rivers regardless of life and death, and traveled around most of the world from the Han Dynasty and ancient India to Rome.
It is understood that even in times of peace and prosperity, the price of pepper was very expensive, and to buy a pound of the cheapest black pepper, at that time it was almost possible to buy enough wheat for a civilian outside Rome to eat for a month, or to pay a Roman legion soldier for 6 days' salary. Other spices may be more expensive. But the high price did not stop the Roman nobility from a strong thirst for spices, pepper was the most important spice in the various high-end dishes of Rome at that time, and its unique spice made the nobles addicted.
It is precisely because pepper is expensive that pepper bottles are incredibly beautifully made. The four pepper bottles in The Hoxson Cellar are not only four artifacts, they also record the history of pepper dominating the human taste and witness the rise and fall of the ancient Roman Empire, so experts believe that these four pepper bottles are extremely precious, and there is definitely a reason.
Citation: A Brief History of the World at the British Museum by Neil McGregor (translated by Yu Yan). Publisher: Nova Press.
Wenlan Hairun Studio Editor-in-Chief Wen Xiucai, this article is written: Special History Writer: Mei Lichang