CONVICT COIN STASH FOUND AT PORT ARTHUR

   

Prisoners at historic Port Arthur were not allowed to carry money. So how did a pile of silver shillings worth about a week's salary for one of the penal colony's overseers end up buried beneath the convicts' workshop?

"It's such an evocative find, it's so out of place," said Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority conservation project officer Sylvana Szydzik.

"We know that convicts occasionally had coins, but that was a pretty substantial amount of money at the time."

The coins were found during a 10-month archaeological dig of the foundry and blacksmith site conducted by University of New England post-doctoral research fellow Richard Tuffin and Ms Szydzik.

The find joins other discoveries such as handmade gambling tokens as well as tobacco pipes and skillfully made metal products.

A coin expert, known as a numismatist, will be engaged to analyse the shillings, which date between 1814 and 1844.

Dr Tuffin said it was likely the coins were stolen in the 1850s.

Just like at a modern prison, there was a black market operating within Port Arthur.

"Back then it was tobacco and gaming," Dr Tuffin said.

"We know they made their own currency."

He said possession of the banned items like handcrafted gambling tokens uncovered at a previous dig at the penitentiary would have created a hierarchy among the convicts.

To read the complete article, see:
Coin stash discovered at Port Arthur archaeology dig gives rare insight into illicit lives of convicts (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-30/coin-stash-discovered-at-port-arthur-archaeology-dig/100541632)

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