Something big happened last week and something much bigger may be on the horizon.
First, just west of the city of Naples, barely 100 miles south of Rome, is the Campi Flegrei caldera where 4.0-rated earthquakes and rumblings are now disturbingly frequent. Campi Flegrei is Italian for “Firey Fields.” The caldera’s underlying magma layer is about 10 miles wide – much larger than Vesuvius which obliterated nearby Pompeii. It extends beyond land into the Gulf of Naples and is considered the most unpredictable volcanic area in Europe. Also, it’s active. If it were to erupt, millions in the densely populated region could be immediately displaced or killed.
Simultaneously, elsewhere in the world, the price of gold went up and the US stock market dropped 500 points. People and businesses may be seeing signals that the near-term economy is not entirely rosy. Be it interest rates, recession worries, employment indexes or general economic uncertainty, the result is investors again turning to and buying gold.
Since the beginning of the year, the Dow and NASDAQ indexes are up six and 10 percent respectively. During the same time, gold has risen 35 percent. Last Tuesday, it jumped $90. On Wednesday, it was up another $75 to close over $3,600 per ounce. That’s $1,000 an ounce higher than barely a year ago and $2,000 higher than it was in 2022. Something is going on.
Some are now predicting gold at $5,000 by the end of the decade. We’ll see. If it keeps climbing at this pace, jobs aplenty will be available as security guards at coin dealers and jewelry stores. On the downside, everyday necklaces and wedding rings will be prime targets for bad guys.
Long before there were safe deposit boxes and banks for such riches, people were forced to creatively stash their coins and jewelry. With doors that lock and advanced alarm systems, it’s better today. But, in the days of Pompeii and Vesuvius, people were forced to get sneaky.
Ancient coin hoards weren’t limited to just Italy. After all, the Roman Empire vastly extended all the way to present-day England and the then-named city of Londinium. To this day, while excavating roads or buildings in London, construction crews have unearthed countless former Roman sites. In them, builders sometimes uncover hoards of precious ancient coins stashed in walls or pits 2,000 years ago and never recovered by the owners.
In southwest Italy, the number of discovered coin stashes as well as more still to be found are substantial. That’s to be expected. Pompeii was home to many wealthy Italians and a resort for the well-to-do. 1,946 years ago, in October of 79 AD, none of the residents of Pompeii expected Vesuvius to annihilate the city and bury their endless wealth.
More recently, there and nearby, much has been found. A few examples in the past two years include a hoard of 200 Roman coins discovered by an archeological group near Livorno. Buried in a ceramic amphora container, the silver and gold coins dated back to 157 BC. The amphora suggests they were stashed by the owner, never to be retrieved.
Also in 2023, divers discovered almost 20,000 bronze Roman coins in the Mediterranean Sea. The find suggests a nearby shipwreck. In 2018, workers renovating the Cressoni theater in Como uncovered a soapstone container filled with hundreds of gold coins dating to the 5th century AD. It was during the decline of the Western Roman Empire so surely they were hidden by a wealthy individual hoping for better days.
Other finds throughout the region go on and on and will continue in Pompeii and other areas where the foundations of ancient buildings and structures arise. Even with the price of gold exceeding $3,600 an ounce, the metal in the coins pales in comparison to their much higher numismatic collector and historic value. So too for silver pieces as well as any struck from bronze.
Potential future finds of historic items depends on if the looming conflagration created by something as massive as the Campi Flegrei cataclysm takes place.
The looming eruption remains an unknown. Science still can’t forecast such events with exact accuracy. What is known is the continued crustal weakening and increased ground inflation will eventually mean an explosive tragedy.
In that event, in addition to widespread fatalities, the number of Italian archeological sites obliterated would be epic. Still-to-be-found stashes of coins, jewelry and artifacts would be lost forever. That would be bigger than big. And, permanent. Sadly, it’s nature. There’s little we can do.
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