Nice DayOne Day,One Nice!!!!

The silver denarius was found by a metal detectorist ten years ago in Hallaton, Leicestershire, but it was just one of 5,000 coins in a hoard that included a rare Roman cavalry parade helmet, a decorated silver bowl and the remains of over 300 pigs probably consumed during a ritual feast, so it has taken a decade to date it.

The Leicestershire County Council bought the Hallaton hoard and created a special gallery for it at the Harborough Museum in Market Harborough. The coins have been in storage since they were brought to the museum while museum researchers carefully dated and catalogued them. The somewhat worn silver coin dates to 211 B.C., that’s 4 years older than the previous record-holder.

The Hallaton Treasure is the greatest number of Iron Age coins ever found in Britain. Archaeologists think the site was a shrine built by the Corieltavi tribe, but they don’t know how such an ancient coin came to be in their possession. Most of the 5,000 coins date to the mid first century A.D., around the time of the Roman invasion.

Some archaeologists have however speculated that such Roman Republican coins found their way into Britain before the Roman conquest in 43 AD and were evidence of exchange through trade or diplomacy.

Professor David Mattingly of the University of Leicester’s School of Archaeology and Ancient History said: “This hoard has changed our view of just how significant the East Midlands were in this period and this coin is a good example.

“It indicates there was contact between this region and the Roman Empire despite the distance between the East Midlands and the parts of Britain the Romans arrived in, like Colchester and Chichester.”

He added: “It was minted in Rome at the time of the Hannibalic wars and here it is turning up after what must have been quite a long journey.”

The silver denarius would have been a day’s wages for a soldier or an unskilled worker. It features a helmeted goddess — possibly Roma — on one side, and the twins Castor and Pollux riding galloping horses on the other. The wear suggests it passed through a great many hands in its long lifetime before it went to ground in the 1st c. A.D.

The coin has a place of honor in the Hallaton Hoard display at the Harborough Museum, and is scheduled to go on tour within the UK this year.

Up, and at the office. Sat all the morning, where among other things I did the first unkind [thing] that ever I did design to Sir W. Warren, but I did it now to some purpose, to make him sensible how little any man’s friendship shall avail him if he wants money. I perceive he do nowadays court much my Lord Bruncker’s favour, who never did any man much courtesy at the board, nor ever will be able, at least so much as myself. Besides, my Lord would do him a kindness in concurrence with me, but he would have the danger of the thing to be done lie upon me, if there be any danger in it (in drawing up a letter to Sir W. Warren’s advantage), which I do not like, nor will endure. I was, I confess, very angry, and will venture the loss of Sir W. Warren’s kindnesses rather than he shall have any man’s friendship in greater esteem than mine. At noon home to dinner, and after dinner to the office again, and there all the afternoon, and at night poor Mrs. Turner come and walked in the garden for my advice about her husband and her relating to my Lord Bruncker’s late proceedings with them. I do give her the best I can, but yet can lay aside some ends of my own in what advice I do give her. So she being gone I to make an end of my letters, and so home to supper and to bed, Balty lodging here with my brother, he being newly returned from mustering in the river.

Lay pretty long, then to the office, where Lord Bruncker and Sir J. Minnes and I did meet, and sat private all the morning about dividing the Controller’s work according to the late order of Council, between them two and Sir W. Pen, and it troubled me to see the poor honest man, Sir J. Minnes, troubled at it, and yet the King’s work cannot be done without it. It was at last friendlily ended, and so up and home to dinner with my wife. This afternoon I saw the Poll Bill, now printed; wherein I do fear I shall be very deeply concerned, being to be taxed for all my offices, and then for my money that I have, and my title, as well as my head. It is a very great tax; but yet I do think it is so perplexed, it will hardly ever be collected duly. The late invention of Sir G. Downing’s is continued of bringing all the money into the Exchequer; and Sir G. Carteret’s three pence is turned for all the money of this act into but a penny per pound, which I am sorry for. After dinner to the office again, where Lord Bruncker, [Sir] W. Batten, and [Sir] W. Pen and I met to talk again about the Controller’s office, and there [Sir] W. Pen would have a piece of the great office cut out to make an office for him, which I opposed to the making him very angry, but I think I shall carry it against him, and then I care not. So a little troubled at this fray, I away by coach with my wife, and left her at the New Exchange, and I to my Lord Chancellor’s, and then back, taking up my wife to my Lord Bellasses, and there spoke with Mr. Moone, who tells me that the peace between us and Spayne is, as he hears, concluded on, which I should be glad of, and so home, and after a little at my office, home to finish my journall for yesterday and to-day, and then a little supper and to bed. This day the House hath passed the Bill for the Assessment, which I am glad of; and also our little Bill, for giving any one of us in the office the power of justice of peace, is done as I would have it.

Up, and to the office, full of thoughts how to order the business of our merry meeting to-night. So to the office, where busy all the morning. [While we were sitting in the morning at the office, we were frighted with news of fire at Sir W. Batten's by a chimney taking fire, and it put me into much fear and trouble, but with a great many hands and pains it was soon stopped.] At noon home to dinner, and presently to the office to despatch my business, and also we sat all the afternoon to examine the loss of The Bredagh, which was done by as plain negligence as ever ship was. We being rose, I entering my letters and getting the office swept and a good fire made and abundance of candles lighted, I home, where most of my company come of this end of the town — Mercer and her sister, Mr. Batelier and Pembleton (my Lady Pen, and Pegg, and Mr. Lowther, but did not stay long, and I believe it was by Sir W. Pen’s order; for they had a great mind to have staid), and also Captain Rolt. And, anon, at about seven or eight o’clock, comes Mr. Harris, of the Duke’s playhouse, and brings Mrs. Pierce with him, and also one dressed like a country-mayde with a straw hat on; which, at first, I could not tell who it was, though I expected Knipp: but it was she coming off the stage just as she acted this day in “The Goblins;” a merry jade. Now my house is full, and four fiddlers that play well. Harris I first took to my closet; and I find him a very curious and understanding person in all pictures and other things, and a man of fine conversation; and so is Rolt. So away with all my company down to the office, and there fell to dancing, and continued at it an hour or two, there coming Mrs. Anne Jones, a merchant’s daughter hard by, who dances well, and all in mighty good humour, and danced with great pleasure; and then sung and then danced, and then sung many things of three voices — both Harris and Rolt singing their parts excellently. Among other things, Harris sung his Irish song — the strangest in itself, and the prettiest sung by him, that ever I heard. Then to supper in the office, a cold, good supper, and wondrous merry. Here was Mrs. Turner also, but the poor woman sad about her lodgings, and Mrs. Markham: after supper to dancing again and singing, and so continued till almost three in the morning, and then, with extraordinary pleasure, broke up only towards morning, Knipp fell a little ill, and so my wife home with her to put her to bed, and we continued dancing and singing; and, among other things, our Mercer unexpectedly did happen to sing an Italian song I know not, of which they two sung the other two parts to, that did almost ravish me, and made me in love with her more than ever with her singing. As late as it was, yet Rolt and Harris would go home to-night, and walked it, though I had a bed for them; and it proved dark, and a misly night, and very windy. The company being all gone to their homes, I up with Mrs. Pierce to Knipp, who was in bed; and we waked her, and there I handled her breasts and did ‘baiser la’, and sing a song, lying by her on the bed, and then left my wife to see Mrs. Pierce in bed to her, in our best chamber, and so to bed myself, my mind mightily satisfied with all this evening’s work, and thinking it to be one of the merriest enjoyment I must look for in the world, and did content myself therefore with the thoughts of it, and so to bed; only the musique did not please me, they not being contented with less than 30s.

French archaeologists excavating a Neolithic grave south of Paris have found evidence of a successful, infection-free amputation performed 6,900 years ago during the Linearbandkeram period when European hunter-gatherers were just settling down to subsistence farming. Considering that they didn’t even have blades back then, that’s pretty damn impressive.

The amputee was elderly, someone of stature in the community, and he lived for at least months, possibly years, after the surgery.

The patient was important: his grave was 2m (6.5ft) long — bigger than most — and contained a schist axe, a flint pick and the remains of a young animal, which are evidence of high status.

The most intriguing aspect, however, was the absence of forearm and hand bones. A battery of biological, radiological and other tests showed that the humerus bone had been cut above the trochlea indent at the end “in an intentional and successful amputation”. Mrs Buquet-Marcon said that the patient, who is likely to have been a warrior, might have damaged his arm in a fall, animal attack or battle.

“I don’t think you could say that those who carried out the operation were doctors in the modern sense that they did only that, but they obviously had medical knowledge,” she said.

The surgical tool would have been a sharpened flint. Archaeologists speculate that pain-killing plants would have been used to keep the patient still during the amputation. Antiseptic plants such as sage could have kept the wound from getting infected.

Neolithic people are known to have practiced trepanation — the surgical removal of a piece of skull — but that’s a more rudimentary kind of medicine. The earliest evidence of Stone Age trepanation is on 7,000-year-old skulls. They were performed by scraping away the bone with sharpened flint or obsidian stones. Later trepanations were done by primitive drilling tools, also made from sharpened rocks.

But it’s a big step from scraping or drilling a few holes in the skull to severing a forearm with its major arteries and nerves without killing the patient. This find suggests Stone Age farmers were significantly more medically advanced than previously realized.

For more information on this find including details of the forensic examination of the remains, see this article in the journal Antiquity.