Category: Treasures

Mug at Auschwitz hid jewelry for 70+ years

Modern(ish), Museums, Treasures

Staff at the Auschwitz Museum have discovered one person’s cherished treasures hidden under the false bottom of a mug for more than 70 years. The mug is one of more than 12,000 pieces of enameled kitchenware — pots, bowls, kettles, cups — in the museum’s collection, the quotidian things people brought with them when being deported in the desperate hope that they would have some kind of normalcy. Nazi officials encouraged this belief.

“The Germans incessantly lied to the Jews deported for extermination. They were told about resettlement, work and life in a different location. They allowed the victims take with them little luggage. In this way, the Germans were confident that in the luggage – including clothes and items needed for life – they would find the last valuables of the deported families,” said the Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński.

“The hiding of valuable items – repeatedly mentioned in the accounts of survivors, and which was the reason for ripping and careful search of clothes and suitcases in the warehouse for looted items – so-called ‘Kanada’ – proves on the one hand to the awareness of the victims as to the robbery nature of the deportation, but on the other hand it shows that the Jewish families constantly had a ray of hope that these items will be required for their existence” stressed director Cywiński.

The owner of the mug defeated this vile scheme by creating a false bottom and hiding precious valuables in the space: a woman’s gold ring with gemstones and a gold chain necklace, coiled and wrapped in canvas. Both pieces bear the mark of a head of a knight with the number three on his right side, a symbol in common use in Poland between 1921 an 1931 for 583 gold, which means the gold content is 583 parts per thousand, or just a hair under 14 karats. While the ring is missing its central gemstone and some of the smaller ones, several of them remain snug in their settings.

The hidden treasure was discovered during routine maintenance work on the enameled kitchenware in the exhibition. Curators noticed that what had once seemed like the bottom of the mug was in fact pulling up, revealing a secret compartment. It kept its cache secure for more than 70 years before the metal gradually degraded, lifting the false bottom and separating it from the mug. Museum staff X-rayed the mug to see what the false bottom was hiding. X-ray fluorescence then confirmed the presence of copper, gold and silver. Only then did conservators carefully remove the bottom to examine the precious contents.

Through the rust you can make out a brand name and colors on the false bottom. The edges are rough, which is at least in part due to corrosion, but I think the mug’s owners cut out a circle from a discarded tin of some kind and then somehow fitted it into the mug so adeptly that it fooled the Nazis, the crews of people they had tearing apart people’s belongings looking for valuables and from 1947 to 2016, the staff of the Auschwitz Museum.

As with so many thousands of objects recovered from Auschwitz, there are no identifying marks that might help historians give credit to the ingenious person or people who so effectively hid these jewels from the Nazis and everyone else for seven decades. The mug and jewelry will kept in the museum in a manner that reflects how they were used so cleverly by desperate but hopeful people, mute but eloquent witnesses to the experience of Jews deported to the extermination camp.

Amphorae with 1,300 lbs of Roman coins found in Spain

Ancient, Treasures

On Wednesday, April 27th, workers digging a trench in Olivar del Zaudín Park in Tomares, a suburb of Seville, Spain, discovered a cache of clay jars nestled three feet under the surface. They alerted the Civil Guard who found there were 19 Roman-era amphorae crammed full of bronze coins from the late 3rd and early 4th century A.D. The number of coins has yet to be determined, but the total weight of them is a staggering 600 kilos (1,300 pounds).

The amphorae and coins were transported to the Archaeological Museum of Seville where conservators have begun to clean, stabilize, identify and count them. Museum director Ana Navarro is not yet able to estimate the total number of coins in the collection. There are tens of thousands of them, that much is clear from the weight. Initial examination has found the coins were minted during the reigns of the emperors Maximian (r. 286-305) and Constantine (r. 306-337) and appear to be in brilliant uncirculated condition, with no signs of wear whatsoever. They are made of bronze but some of them show signs of having been silvered, ie, coated with a thin layer of silver totalling maybe four or five percent of the coin weight.

The amphorae are special too. Out of the 19 amphorae, nine of them were perfectly intact with their coins untouched inside. The other ten were damaged by the excavator at the time of discovery (a cloud with a silver lining because it gives archaeologists the opportunity to see how the coins were packed in the vessels). They are not of the kind used to transport the wine, fermented fish intestine sauce and grains that Romans were so fond of. They’re smaller than standard merchant amphorae and may have been designed specifically to carry cash. The amphorae were placed vertically in packed earth up to their shoulders and then covered by bricks and pieces of broken ceramic. It’s not clear if they were deliberately hidden underground due to social unrest, violence or danger, or if this was a deposit space inside a fort or military structure of some kind.

The find is unique in Spain and likely the rest of the Roman world. Navarro and her team contacted researchers in Britain, France and Italy and they all agreed that they have never seen so large and homogeneous an accumulation of coins from the late Roman empire. Because of their homogeneity, tight date range and amphorae, the coins were not a private treasure. Navarro speculates that they could have been pay for the army or civil servants, or perhaps destined for the imperial tax coffers. Less than a tenth of the coins have been examined at this point, so it’s too early to draw any conclusions.

The region in which they where they were found was a powerful economic center in the Roman Spain province. The ancient city of Italica, founded in 206 B.C. by Publius Cornelius Scipio, future victor over Hannibal in the Second Punic War, is just next door. Emperors Trajan and Hadrian were born there. It’s a good thing the coins weren’t kept in the big city, however, as after its decline the nearby city of Seville, Hispalis in Roman times, used Italica as a quarry. As late as the 18th century Seville was still feasting on the bones of its ancient neighbor. Seville demolished the walls of Italica’s amphitheater in 1740 and used the stone to build a dam and demolished the old Republican city in 1796 to build a road with its stone. It wasn’t protected until 1810 under Napoleon.

The Olivar del Zaudín Park’s land was two farmsteads in the Middle Ages, nothing worth messing with when there was a far more obvious ancient target drawing focus. They were eventually combined and made into an olive orchard. Olive trees still dot the landscape today. Just a few miles west of Seville, the 45-hectare site has never been developed and, thanks to its extensive flora and natural lagoon system with four lakes, is an ecological preserve for a plethora of nesting and migratory birds, insects, butterflies, reptiles, fish and amphibians.

The same fortunate happenstance that over the millennia preserved the site for nature also preserved 19 amphorae of coins. The crew was working on a canal project as part of a regeneration plan to restore the lagoons, sustain the olive trees and eventually build a bird observatory, work which has now been suspended as a consequence of the momentous find. An emergency excavation will take place before work resumes.

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Viking treasure pokes finder in Denmark

Medieval, Museums, Treasures

Søren Bagge had only been metal detecting for a couple of months in August of 2015. With no particular expertise, he picked a field near Lille Karleby on the Hornsherred peninsula of Zealand, Denmark, to scan just because he happened to have grown up nearby and so could easily stop at home for coffee breaks. The first couple of days he found a few Arabic silver coins. The next signal from his metal detector was weak too, but when he dug into the top soil, he found a small silver cup. He’d felt something pointy stabbing him as he was digging up the cup, so he suspected there was more to be found in the spot and rushed to alert the Roskilde Museum.

It was the weekend, though, and nobody was around to pursue his lead. Bagge put the cup back where he found it and reburied it to keep it safe until Monday. On Monday Roskilde Museum archaeologists did a small excavation on the spot. About a foot below the surface they encountered multiple artifacts and realized they had a Viking hoard on their hands. They removed the entire lot in a soil block to excavate it with careful deliberation in laboratory conditions.


Before excavating the soil block, archaeologists took it to Roskilde Hospital where it was CT scanned in the Radiology unit. The scan showed there were a great many artifacts encased in that soil block. It gave archaeologists a blueprint of how to proceed. There is video of the block’s arrival at the hospital and the scan. This video is in Danish, but you don’t have to understand what they’re saying to appreciate the excitement of the CT reveal.

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The excavation revealed an exceptional treasure of 392 pieces. The silver cup Bagge found was one of two. There were 53 gilt bronze and silver pendants, more than 300 beads made of glass, amber, rock crystal and silver, 18 Arabic and Western European coins, a braided silver chain, a bracelet or arm ring with five smaller rings attached, elaborately decorated pieces from France, Eastern Europe and Ireland or Scotland. Some of the objects of Scandinavian manufacture were already antiques when they were buried in the second half of the 10th century.

I hesitate to play favorites with so many beautiful and important pieces, but the large ball penannular brooch, also known as a thistle brooch, is breathtaking. Penannular brooches were relatively common in the Viking era, but nothing like this one has been found in Denmark before. It’s Irish or Scottish and was made in the 10th century. It’s called a thistle brooch because it is decorated with three spheres in the shaving brush shape of the thistle bud. The brooch is large — 10 inches long — with a wicked long pin. It was that pin which poked at Søren Bagge when he was digging.

These large brooches were worn by elite men, high-ranking clerics and royal family members, with the pin facing upwards. There was a law on the books in Scotland that provided compensation for people who were accidentally stuck by long-pins. In a little historical irony, the reason the thistle is the national emblem of Scotland is that, according to legend, a barefoot Norse invader stepped on a thistle during an attempted nighttime raid on a Scottish army encampment. His cries of pain warned the Scots that the Vikings were coming and Scottish forces successfully repulsed the attack.

Another impressive import/pillaged piece in the hoard is a trefoil strap mount with acanthus decoration. This was a Frankish design which would later be copied in Scandinavia, only the Norse usually put stylized animal designs or geometric shapes inside the three leaves rather than the French acanthus motif. The French used trefoils as fittings on a sword strap. The Vikings converted them into a jewelry — belt buckles, brooches — and they’re usually discovered in women’s graves where there are no swords or any other weapons, for that matter. The Frankish style dates the piece to between the late 8th century and the 10th century.

Seven hollow silver beads in the hoard are of both Scandinavian and Slavic origin. The six largest, most elaborate beads decorated with rich filigree and showing the remains of gilding were probably manufactured in Poland or West Russia in the 9th or 10th century. They are very rare finds in Scandinavia. The seventh bead, on the other hand, is rounder with a silver spiral applique’ that is more typical of Scandinavian beads.

The bracelet or arm-ring with the rings attached is certainly a Scandinavian piece. The four smaller rings are closed with a knot, and the fifth and smallest ring is threaded through a heavy silver bead. The rings would have clinked together and chimed when the wearer moved her arm. Archaeologists think the design might represent Odin’s dwarf-forged gold ring, Draupnir (“the dripper” in Old Norse), which “dripped” eight rings of equal weight to the original every ninth night. In Norse mythology, it’s a symbol of fertility and prosperity.

As for the silver cup that started all of this, it and its companion are different. One is decorated with triangle designs close to the lip. One is plain. The decorated one is bigger and heavier than the plain one. Both were likely drinking goblets for the upper echelons of Norse society. Other Viking hoards also include silver cups, one larger and more ornamented than the other. Archaeologists think the uneven sets may have been used during important banquets or festivals where the honored guest would get to use the fancier cup and the host would take the plainer one. The style of the cups indicate they were made between 700 and 1000, but since the treasure was buried up to 50 or so years before the latter date, we can shave a few years off of that broad estimate.

The treasure went on display at the Roskilde Museum in December and is now in the National Museum for further study.

17th c. treasure hidden during uprising found in Bulgaria

Modern(ish), Treasures


A treasure of silver jewels buried in the 17th century has been found near the northwestern Bulgarian city of Montana. The hoard was discovered by local residents who very responsibly reported the find to the National Museum of History in Sofia. There’s a tiara, two forehead bands, two ear tabs, connectors between the headpieces and the ear tabs, a pair of earrings and two rings. They are all made of silver and are of very high quality, decorated with expensive, highly skilled techniques including filigree, granulation, niello, gold leaf and a green glass-like mass that is probably enamel. The objects were placed in a leather purse, surviving fragments of which were found at the site.

The jewelry is almost certainly local work. The area was known for its very fine gold and silversmiths. The work of the Chiprovtsi smiths was famous all over Eastern Europe for its complexity and delicacy. They had access to a steady supply of precious raw materials, thanks to local silver ore deposits which were extensively mined in the 16th and 17th centuries.

After the Ottoman conquest of the Second Bulgarian Empire in 1396, some areas were granted the right of Christian self-government, among them the village of Chiprovtsi and neighboring towns. When silver ore was found in the region in the second half of the 15th century, the population of the villages swelled with Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Albanians and German miners while the old Catholic nobility appears to have ruled virtually undisturbed with only a token Ottoman representation in the municipal government. Chiprovtsi was closely linked to the Catholic ecclesiastical hierarchy as well. The official residence of the Catholic archbishops of Bulgaria was Chiprovtsi’s Monastery of St. Mary.

The mix of peoples, strong Catholic leadership and quasi-autonomy of the region spurred residents to seek to overthrown the Ottoman Yoke. The Chiprovtsi Uprising, a rebellion of Roman Catholic (and some Eastern Orthodox) Bulgarians against Ottoman rule, was precipitated by Austria’s capture of Belgrade from the Turks on September 6th, 1688. Chiprovtsi Catholics had been trying to induce the monarchies of western Europe to take Bulgaria from the Ottomans for more than four decades, coming very close several times to triggering elaborate invasion plans that ultimately fell through. When Belgrade fell to the Austrians, the Chiprovtsi rebels thought that after so many false starts, the moment had finally come. Hopeful that the Austrians would send reinforcements to support the uprising, extend their victory east and ultimately liberate all of Bulgaria from Ottoman rule, the insurrectionists rose up and fought the Ottomans and their Magyar allies.

It did not go well. There was no coordination between Austrian and Bulgarian forces, and the Turks handily won the military encounters. The decisive battle took place near Montana, then called Kutlovitsa, in October of 1688. The Ottomans won decisively. They captured Chiprovtsi on October 18th and razed it to the ground, killing almost everyone and enslaving whoever survived. While a much-reduced guerilla resistance continued for a few months, the Austrians never came and much of the remaining population fled west to the Danube or north to Wallachia. Archbishop Peter Knezevic led the emigration to Wallachia. Few Christians remained in the northwest and the Ottomans ruled directly, stripping the Bulgarian nobility of their old privileges and political power.

The National Museum of History experts believe the cache of silver jewels was a family fortune buried in the turbulent days of the Chiprovtsi Uprising in the fall of 1688. Since almost everyone in the area was killed in battle, executed, enslaved or fled, there was nobody left to dig up the treasure.

Viking hoard in Carolingian pot revealed

Medieval, Treasures

Historic Environment Scotland has released the first images of the objects found inside the Carolingian pot that was part of a Viking hoard discovered in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, in September of 2014. Archaeologists took the unusual step of CT scanning the rare silver alloy vessel shortly after it was unearthed because they were concerned it was too fragile to just take the lid off and see what it contained. The scan identified at least one Anglo-Saxon openwork brooch, four other silver brooches, some gold ingots and ivory beads coated in gold, each wrapped in an organic material.

Armed with a CT roadmap of the vessel’s contents, conservators painstakingly excavated the interior, taking care to preserve every fragment of organic material they could to prevent it from crumbling into dust when exposed to the air. In addition to the ingot and silver-encased ivory beads detected on the scan, they found a total of six Anglo-Saxon silver brooches, one penannular brooch likely made in Ireland, a richly decorated gold pendant which may have held holy relics, several mysterious gold and crystal objects and, breaking the precious metals trend, two large seeds of nuts. The nuts have yet to be identified, but obviously they came from a very special plant that probably wasn’t indigenous to the area.

The hoard was found in two layers: a top one 24 inches under the surface with silver armbands, ingots, a gold bird pin and a silver and enamel cross wrapped in a silver chain, and underneath it the pot. It’s the largest Carolingian pot ever discovered and there are only six known. Scholars believe it may have had been used for important Christian ceremonies and was raided during a Viking incursion on a monastery or church in Germany or France. By the time it was buried, it could well have been a family heirloom.

The levels appear to have been arranged according to the their importance. The pieces on top were valuable, but most of them were the kind of thing that was cut up for currency, ie, hacksilver before the hacking. The pot, on the other hand, and its contents, must have been deemed of greater significance to their owner. Each object was wrapped in a textile and placed inside the vessel which was topped with its lid and then it too was wrapped with cloth or leather. Textile experts studied the fragments from inside the pot and identified several of them as silk samite, a super deluxe fabric woven in Byzantium, North Africa, or southern Spain. This fabric was exclusively the province of monarchs, the highest ecclesiastical officials and the remains of venerated saints buried in churches.

The style of the artifacts in the hoard date them to the 9th and 10th centuries, which means the hoard was likely buried in the 10th century, a period when the Vikings in the British Isles had suffered setbacks after more than a century of successful raids starting in the 790s. In the 9th century there was extensive Norse settlement of Scotland and the their military victories continued even as the country unified under Kenneth MacAlpin, King of the Picts and first King of Scotland (Alba). Several of his successors — Constantine I, Indulf — died fighting the Norse. Then there were the English to deal with. In 937 King of Scotland Constantine II allied with his once and future enemy Olaf Guthfrithson, the Viking king of Dublin, to defeat the invading army of Æthelstan, King of England. They lost. It was a one-battle alliance anyway, and the conflict between the Scots and Norse continued throughout the century.

Galloway itself had a strong Viking presence from the 9th until the 11th century. It’s in southwest Scotland, with Norse-heavy Cumbria just to the south and the Norse-dominated Irish Sea to the west. The people who lived there in the 10th century were mostly Vikings in language and culture. The person who buried the hoard was likely trying to protect his savings rather than burying it as a religious offering. That’s why he was so very careful about how the valuables were buried. He planned to recover them but never did.

The ultimate fate of the hoard has yet to be determined. Its market value will be assessed by Scotland’s Treasure Trove Unit and the hoard will be offered to Scottish museums. Whichever museum wants it will have to raise the value of the hoard as a reward which will be split between the metal detectorist who discovered it, Derek McLennan, and the landowner, the Church of Scotland. The value is sure to be very high. No other Viking hoard has been found with such a wide variety of objects — gold, silver, glass, enamel, textiles — from such a wide geographic area. Preliminary estimates put it at between £500,000 and £1 million, closer to the latter than the former.