user: News: Different Roman coins are shown. (AP Photo/St Albans City and District Council)

Laurence Egerton's metal-detecting excursions often resulted in such "treasures" as old shotgun cartridges and other "rubbish," he says. But last November, the UK builder found something much better—22,000 fourth-century Roman coins, the biggest such cache ever found in Britain.

The coins, which date from AD260 to AD348 and are known as the Seaton Down Hoard because of where they were found, went on temporary display at the British Museum last week, the Telegraph reports.

But before that, they had to be excavated—and while archaeologists worked on that, Egerton, 51, couldn't bring himself to leave the site. "I slept in my car alongside it for three nights to guard it," he says.

"Every night the archaeologists packed up and left, and I couldn’t go home and sleep thinking there was something of such significance sitting there in a hole in the ground." Experts are impressed with the find, which includes coins struck in honor of the foundation of Constantinople in AD332 that feature Emperor Constantine the Great's image; one archaeologist says they were probably someone's savings.

"There were no High Street banks, so a good, deep hole in the ground was as secure a place as any to hide your savings in times of trouble, or if you were going away on a long journey," he explains.

They were found in a field near a previously excavated Roman villa site, and Egerton first spotted two thumbnail-sized coins on the ground. His metal detector then uncovered iron underground—something many metal detectors won't do, because it's typically worthless—and he soon found himself bringing up a "shovel ... full of coins—they just spilled out over the field," he says.

Authorities declared the coins to be official treasure, meaning they're eligible to be acquired by a museum; the Royal Albert Memorial Museum is trying to raise the money to buy them.

Egerton has a license to operate on the land where they were found, so he and the landowner will split the proceeds—and the copper coins could be worth tens of thousands of dollars, though in their day, an expert tells the Guardian, they were probably only worth the equivalent of four gold coins.

Egerton hopes to keep one of the coins as a memento. "I have found lots of interesting items but never anything of this magnitude," he says.

"It really doesn't get any better than this." (This summer, an artist hid $16,000 worth of gold bars on a beach.)

This article originally appeared on Newser: Man Slept in Car for Days to Guard Discovered Treasure

Title: Guy discovers treasure, guards it by sleeping in car for 3 days


News: LAWRENCE, Mass. — There is a litany of reasons one might avoid this city: double-digit unemployment, high crime rates, struggling public schools and, at the top, enduring suspicions of chronic mismanagement.

The city’s dismal finances have led to a state-appointed fiscal overseer, and its school system is the first in Massachusetts to be placed in receivership. The former superintendent, Wilfredo Laboy, was recently convicted of embezzlement. According to The Boston Globe, Mayor William Lantigua is the subject of corruption investigations by local and federal authorities, as well as a campaign finance investigation by the state attorney general.

“It is tough when you’re looking from the outside in,” said Officer Angel Lopez, a patrolman on the city’s police force, which has shrunk to about 120 today from 151 in 2010.

So bleak is Lawrence’s image that a recent article in Boston magazine, highlighting the city’s busy drug trade and controversial politics, proclaimed it to be the “most godforsaken place in Massachusetts.”

For many who live here, those were fighting words.

“I was shaking, scrambling to get my words together,” said Aliali Belkus, who grew up here and now teaches at Lawrence High School, describing her response to the magazine article. “Not because it wasn’t true, but because it was a very one-sided image of the city,” she continued. “We’ve become the punching bag.”

So on a recent Friday afternoon, several dozen residents gathered at a refurbished mill, ready to draw up a battle plan for a war of words and actions that they hope will help reshape Lawrence’s battered image.

“We need to be ready, willing and able,” Eduardo Crespo, a public relations professional and longtime resident, said to the diverse group. “Anyone for press releases? Community relations?”

The effort is an attempt to retell the city’s story as a tale of hope and success alongside its difficulties, using conventional public relations, social media and small civic projects. But the first challenge of the campaign, which is called We Are Lawrence, may be ensuring that its message resonates at home in the face of the city’s street-level reality.

Lawrence, a city of 76,000 squeezed into about seven square miles, rises up in brick out of the more comfortable suburbs that surround it. It was a battleground for America’s labor movement, having been the site of the Bread and Roses labor strike, which celebrates its centennial this year. “Ellis Island of the Merrimack Valley,” as some local people call it, has long drawn immigrants — and has continued to, even as manufacturing collapsed here in the second half of the 20th century.

According to the 2010 census, people of Hispanic origin make up 73.8 percent of the city’s population; Hispanics make up only 9.6 percent of the statewide population. Manufacturing’s decline gutted the city’s main economic engines, and today Lawrence has the state’s lowest median income, according to the census, at $31,631.

“You have to have places where people are allowed to struggle,” Ms. Belkus said. “People don’t want places like this to exist anymore. And they need to.”

That struggle manifests itself, in part, on the streets. Chief John Romero of the Police Department said the cuts to the force preceded an increase in violent crime of about 63 percent, to 2,790 felonies in 2011 from 1,770 in 2009.

“Crime is probably the biggest thing,” Officer Lopez said of the city’s problems. “Lawrence is the magnet, the place to go where they can feel comfortable. Maybe because you have all the rooming houses, pawn shops, methadone clinics.”

We Are Lawrence cannot put more officers on the streets. But the group’s organizers say they can take small steps that might revitalize the city, fostering pride and economic development by highlighting its robust history, successful charter schools and the nonprofit groups that are working to bring new life to street corners and empty textile mills.

In March, a boisterous rally drew hundreds of people to a downtown park, many wearing signs that sought to reclaim a word the article used to describe the town: “Damned educated,” read one. “Damned orgulloso,” or ‘proud,’ read another. “Are we damned? No!” the crowd shouted as it began a parade around the city.

Mr. Lantigua hung back, standing with a small group of aides. His 2010 election as the city’s first Latino mayor was a landmark moment, but the excitement was short-lived as his tenure has been plagued with accusations of corruption.

“Drug trafficking, dealing, money laundering, suspicious travel, what else?” Mr. Lantigua said, casually listing the suspicions people have raised about him.

Title:

assistant: A Massachusetts City Tries to Change Its Reputation