In Poland, a metal detectorist searching a field for tractor components
instead found a hoard of 400-year-old coins.
A remarkable hoard of 17th-century coins was unearthed by a metal
detectorist while looking for abandoned tractor components on a Polish farm.
The coins were hidden beneath the dirt.
A local resident named Michaotys discovered the treasure in late February
close to the tiny hamlet of Zaniówka in eastern Poland, close to the borders
with Belarus and Ukraine.
When a new metal detector began buzzing in one of the farm's fields, otys
scraped away a layer of the dirt in order to locate replacement parts for
his sister's tractor. That made it clear that the coins were dripping out of
a cracked clay "siwak," a native jug with a single handle and a short
neck.
It is against the law in Poland to use a metal detector to look for buried
artifacts without a permission, so otys called archaeologists in the nearby
city of Lublin, which is located about 95 miles (150 kilometers) southeast
of Warsaw. They came to the farm the following day.
According to a story in the Polish news source The First News, their
investigations revealed that the location of the concealed treasure was
clearly delineated on the surface of the earth, indicating it had been
interred there purposefully.(opens in new tab).
hidden wealth
The hoard contains about 1,000 copper coins made in Poland and Lithuania in
the 17th century, according to a Facebook post on March 2 by Dariusz
Kopciowski, the head of Lublin's legacy protection organization.
All of the copper pieces have turned green due to oxidation after being
buried for about 400 years, and many of them have decayed in layers. But
according to Kopciowski, about 115 of the pieces are loose, and the total
collection weights about 6.6 pounds (3 kilograms).
The majority of the pieces were produced between 1663 and 1666 in Warsaw,
Vilnius, Lithuania, and Brest, now in Belarus but then a component of the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, according to investigations.
Such coins are referred to as "boratynki" after Tito Livio Burattini, who was the superintendent of the Kraków mint at the time,
according to the Polish metal detecting website Zwiadowca Historii.
Italian inventor and scholar Burattini, whose coffers had been destroyed by
years of conflict with Sweden, Russia, and Cossacks, brought copper coinage
to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth because they were much less expensive
to produce than the country's silver coins.
Although the "boratynki" tokens were originally well-liked, Burattini was
later charged with degrading the copper metal used in their production while
raking in enormous profits.
They could be used in daily interactions because, among other things, they
weren't very valuable; according to Zwiadowca Historii, the complete hoard
of 1,000 copper coins from Zaniówka could only be used to pay for "about two
pairs of shoes" at the time. However, they are now worth more as historical
artifacts.
According to Kopciowski, the Zaniówka currency trove will now be given to
experts at a museum in the neighboring city of Biaa Podlaska for additional
research.
He claimed in the statement that there were also fragments of the shattered
earthenware jug and various items of historical clothing at the
location.
