Someone buried treasure and never returned. Woman just found the medieval ‘jackpot’
Surrounded by political instability and warfare, a medieval person decided to hide their riches. They buried a pot filled with coins but never returned.
Nine hundred years later, a woman in modern-day Czechia stumbled on the forgotten “jackpot.”
The woman found some silver coins while walking through a field in Kutnohorsku and contacted officials, the Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic said in a May 16 news release.
Archaeologists searched the field with metal detectors and eventually unearthed more than 2,150 coins.
The silver coins were likely buried between 1100 and 1125 during a period of regional instability, an archaeologist with the institute, Filip Velímský, said in the release. The coins were originally in a pottery container but scattered by later agricultural work.
Photos show some of the tarnished 900-year-old coins.
Velímský described the medieval coin hoard as having significant value during its time and being an unimaginable amount for an everyday person. He compared the amount to a modern-day lottery “jackpot.”
Archaeologists noted that the coins may have been war booty or unpaid wages, the institute said.
The artifacts were taken to a laboratory for further analysis and documentation, a process that will likely take a year. Archaeologists hope to put the coins on public display in 2025.
Kutnohorsku, more commonly known as Kutná Hora, is a roughly 50-mile drive east of Prague.
Google Translate was used to translate the news release from the Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.
This story was originally published May 20, 2024 at 1:03 PM with the headline "Someone buried treasure and never returned. Woman just found the medieval ‘jackpot’."
