www.thehistoryblog.com
Medieval coin hoard found in pipe trench
One of the largest medieval coin hoards in southwestern Germany has been found in a pipe trench in Glottertal. In May of this year, an employee of the State Office for Monument Preservation (LAD) of the Stuttgart Regional Council was observing a crew laying a new water pipe. His brief was to look for ceramics, but then he spotted “small metal plates” in the trench. More of them were found when he explored it further, so work stopped and he reported the discovery to the LAD.
A LAD archaeologist immediately followed up, examining the site in person that same day. Three licensed metal detectorists commissioned by LAD also scanned the site. Rain had turned the trench into a mud pit, but even knee-deep in mud, they recovered about 600 more coins. That brought the total number of coins in the hoard to 1,600. It is the largest discovery in the region since 1949.
Preliminary cleaning of the coins found that were minted around 1320 in Germany and Switzerland. Most of them came from the Breisach, Zofingen and Freiburg mints, with the Basel, St. Gallen, Zurich, Laufenburg and Colmar mints also represented. According to LAD archaeologist Andreas Haasis-Berner:
“The evaluation of this coin hoard will enable us to make statements about the circulation of coins in Breisgau, the minting activity in the mints, the silver trade, but also the mining in Glottertal.” When asked whether the hoard was very valuable at the time, the archaeologist said: “You could have bought about 150 sheep with the coins.”
The coins were likely buried shortly after they were minted. The find site was once a settlement where the miners who worked the silver mines on the edge of the Black Forest lived.
The hoard is now being cleaned and conserved. They will be exhibited after experts have fully documented and studied the coins, probably next year some time.