Scientists speculate about the origin of an unprecedented ancient treasure
A Dutch historian has found an amazing treasure — a unique medieval gold treasure of 1000 years ago, consisting of four gold ear pendants, two strips of gold leaf and 39 silver coins, according to the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden).
Photo: Fleur Schinning/Archaeology West-Friesland
The lucky winner was 27-year-old Lorenzo Ruyter, who told Reuters that he had been hunting for treasure since he was 10 years old. According to him, he discovered the treasure back in 2021 in the small northern town of Hoogwood using a metal detector.
“It was a very special discovery of something so valuable, I really can’t describe it. I never expected to find anything like this,” Ruyter said, adding that it was difficult to keep it a secret for two years.
But experts from the National Museum of Antiquities took time to clean, examine and date the items from the hoard, and now they have found that the coin closest to our time can be dated to around 1250, leading them to assume that the hoard was buried around then.< /p>
By that time, the piece of jewelry was already two centuries old, the museum said, adding that it must have already been a «dear and cherished asset.»
«Gold jewelry of the era of the High Middle Ages are extremely rare in the Netherlands,» the museum also reported.
Although it remains a mystery why exactly the treasure was buried, the museum indicated that in the mid-13th century a war raged between the Dutch regions of West Friesland and Holland, the epicenter of which was Hoogvud.
Lorenzo Ruyter believes that perhaps some then a wealthy member of the nobility at the time buried valuable items to protect them and hoped to dig them up once they were safe again.
Given its archaeological significance, the treasure has been loaned to a museum that will display it , but it will remain the official property of Lorenzo Ruyter, who found it, Reuters notes.
In November last year, the media reported that in Scotland, near the village of Dumfriesshire, a huge treasure was discovered with the help of metal detectors, hidden more than 700 years ago. The treasure consisted of over 8,000 antique Scottish, English, Irish and Continental silver coins, each of which can be valued in the hundreds or thousands of pounds.