'I was shaking when I first unearthed it': 11th-century silver coin hoard unearthed in England

Archaeologists in England have unearthed a hoard of 321 silver coins in mint condition on the construction site of a nuclear power plant. The coins were wrapped in cloth and lead, suggesting their owner may have been trying to protect them while burying them to avoid having them confiscated.

The coins — some of which are from small, rural mints, and therefore quite rare — date to between 1036 and 1044. This means they coincide with the start of the Anglo-Saxon king Edward the Confessor's reign, a turbulent period of English history during which the king exiled and confiscated the properties of several elites who had fallen out of his favor, according to a statement.

The 11th-century value of the coin hoard, amounting to 320 pence, would have been a sizable sum for most people at the time — enough to buy about 16 cows, said Alexander Bliss, a coin specialist with Oxford Cotswold Archaeology (OCA), the organization that excavated the coins.