by Björn Schöpe
translated by Annika Backe
August 20, 2015 – In April 2015, forester Boguslaw Szwichtenberg found a sensational hoard comprising coins from the 16th and the 17th century in a forest located in western Poland. He found the two clay pots filled with thousands of silver coins near an old country road. He transferred the find to the Archaeological Museum where it is currently cleaned.
It is said that the coins are comparatively well preserved, though many coins are stuck together. They have to be separated and given conservational care first before a more precise assessment can be made as what the hoard entails exactly. For now, the oldest coin dates from 1516, and the youngest from 1612.
Provincial Conservator Barbara Bielinis-Kopec told the Polish press: “This is the greatest discovery of this kind made in today’s province Lubuskie. After counting, it turned out that the pots contained 6,159 coins, including 5,370 smaller denarii and 787 larger Prague groschen.”
The find is likely to be further analyzed in the near-by Archaeological Museum of Swidnica. This is a measure favored both by the museum director, Wlodzimierz Rebelski, and by conservator Bielinis-Kopec. The find spot has been thoroughly examined and the Archaeological Image of Poland card has been prepared as documentation of the site.
The Polish online journal Science & Scholarship in Poland reported about the find and published a first picture.
The Archaeological Museum Swidnica can only be found on Facebook. Some pictures of the coin hoard have been posted there as well.