A professor took his niece metal detecting in a Suffolk field and found 18 Iron Age gold coins

A University of East Anglia professor who took his niece metal detecting in a Suffolk field uncovered a hoard of 18 Iron Age gold coins linked to 2 ancient British rulers. Tom Licence, Professor of Medieval History and Literature at UEA, discovered the coins during searches in a field near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, in autumn 2024, before returning months later and finding another full coin. The discoveries were reported to a Finds Liaison Officer and declared treasure. The resulting Bury St Edmunds hoard has been described by auction house Noonans as the largest known hoard of gold coins deposited during the reign of Dubnovellaunos, ruler of the Trinovantes. Sixteen of the 18 coins were subsequently offered individually at Noonans Mayfair on March 4, 2026, after Licence and the landowner each retained one stater. Those 16 auctioned coins fetched a combined hammer price of £33,200, exceeding Noonans' pre-sale estimate of around £25,000.A field chosen for his niece produced the first gold staterLicence had been interested in metal detecting since childhood and developed a more serious interest in the hobby in 1994, after finding a Charles I Rose Farthing in a flower bed in Rye, East Sussex. According to Noonans, he chose the Suffolk field because his niece wanted to try metal detecting and he was looking for a suitable place to take her. The field rose gently from a nearby stream and had dark, silty soil that was in good condition when Licence searched it. The first signals produced 2 pieces of Viking hack silver. Licence then found a gold stater. After changing his detector settings and systematically working along marked rows, he uncovered several more gold coins before finishing for the day. He subsequently returned to the field and continued searching, ultimately finding the coins that became the Bury St Edmunds hoard. The finds were reported through the Portable Antiquities Scheme and declared treasure under the Treasure Act. Licence was born in Essex but said his family has roots around Bury St Edmunds. Following the discovery, he said he liked to imagine that the coins could have been buried by one of his own ancestors.The coins carry the names of 2 Iron Age rulersThe coins in the hoard can be attributed to Addedomaros and Dubnovellaunos, 2 rulers whose coinages are associated with the Catuvellauni and Trinovantes. Noonans' catalogue notes that Addedomaros' territory appears to have extended into Trinovantian land and that he may have been the father of Dubnovellaunos, although the relationship is not established as fact. Addedomaros was probably the first king north of the River Thames to produce an inscribed coinage. His coins carry his name in Latin letters, providing rare evidence of written names on British coinage before the Roman conquest.Dubnovellaunos ruled the Trinovantes and at one stage also appears to have held power in Kent. His name is also recorded outside Britain. The Res Gestae Divi Augusti, the account of Roman Emperor Augustus' achievements, mentions a ruler named Dubnovellaunus among foreign kings who sought refuge with Augustus. Numismatist John Sills has suggested that the hoard was buried during Dubnovellaunos' reign. His interpretation is based partly on the sequence of coin dies and the absence of Dubnovellaunos' final 2 issues from the group. The chronology of the rulers and their coinages remains subject to scholarly discussion.The burial site matches a pattern seen in other hoardsThe findspot lies roughly a day's walk from Colchester to the south and Bury St Edmunds to the north, placing it within the area associated with the Trinovantes. The physical position of the coins also attracted attention because the hoard was found just below the crest of an east-facing slope. Noonans cites researcher Philip de Jersey's work on the microtopography of Iron Age and later coin hoards, which identified a preference for burial on east-facing slopes among hoards deposited on hillsides. The Bury St Edmunds discovery fits that pattern.Licence has suggested that the combination of a hillcrest illuminated by the morning sun and a nearby spring could indicate that the location held some form of religious significance for the people who buried the coins. That remains an interpretation rather than an established explanation for the burial. The concentration of the coins in one location indicates a deliberate deposit, but there is no definitive evidence explaining why they were buried or why they were never recovered. Their survival for roughly 2,000 years before Licence's detector located them has provided numismatists with a rare group of inscribed British gold coins from the period immediately before Roman rule.Two standout coins reveal more about Iron Age coinageAmong the hoard's highlights was an Addedomaros wheel stater that Licence identified as a personal favourite. Numismatist John Sills noted that the coin carries more visible lettering than any other known example of the type, helping confirm the spelling of the ruler's name on the design. Before the auction, Noonans estimated the coin at £3,000 to £6,000. Another notable piece was a Dubnovellaunos stater struck from a previously unrecorded die, which had a pre-sale estimate of £1,500 to £2,000. The coins were offered individually rather than as a single lot, allowing collectors to acquire individual examples of the 2 rulers' coinages.Sixteen of the 18 coins from the discovery went under the hammer at Noonans in March 2026, after Licence and the landowner each retained one stater for themselves. The sale of those 16 lots produced a combined hammer price of £33,200, above the auction house's original estimate of around £25,000. Licence has said he plans to put some of his share of the proceeds towards supporting archaeological work in Suffolk, giving the discovery a connection to the region where the coins spent centuries buried beneath the field.Catch the latest World News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.