Les fouilles du quartier Baudimont en 1985 : les monnaies

Abstract

The new campaign of excavations carried out in 1985 on the Baudimont site in Arras, yielded 232 coins, a big part of which, 144 to be precise, was actually discovered on the structures currently studied (cf. in the same number the supplementary contributions of A. Jacques, M. Tuffreau-Libre, and E. Belot). This trove consists at first in 3 specimens dug out of a filling-in layer, while clearing a section of a castrum wall. The most recent item found in this layer dating back to the erection of the fort is an official antoninianus of Tetri- cus I (271-274) and brings thus a logical terminus post quern to the erection of this defensive structure. The remaining 141 coins were dug out of layers superposed to those of the « House with the mural paintings», which was previously found to have been abandonned about the beginning of the second half of the IVth century. A large proportion of them belongs to productions of the IVth quarter of the INrd century and the first half of the following century. In this regard, the total lack of coins dating from this new period of occupation (Valentinian and perhaps Theodosian periods) characterized by two buildings which may be thought of as a wooden shack and a cellar, makes us raise some doubts as to the use of these structures ad human dwelling places.