10.11.2018 Sixty gold ducats
Categories: Finds and rescue research in the Czech Republic , Calendar
Sixty gold ducats were awarded to the Regional Museum in Vysoké Mýto three years ago. The treasure was hidden just a few centimetres below the surface. Someone probably hid it in the 1730s.
The treasure was found in Králice, the most important treasure of its kind for East Bohemia. A year earlier, 36 similar ducats and six silver coins were discovered by archaeologists during the revitalisation of the Frýdlant castle pond. The Unicov treasure, found in 1911 but only published three years ago, is even bigger. It contained as many as 352 gold coins, again ducats similar to those from Králice, which were probably hidden in 1614.
We wrote more about the Unicov treasure here: Gold treasure next to the gallows
The depot found in 2018 in Králick is very valuable from the historical and material point of view. Thanks to the good cooperation of museums in the Pardubice Region, the treasure has been documented and presented in a graphic way. It was cash that was collected in Hungary in the mid-1930s.
"It was undoubtedly intended for transport over a longer distance, which is why it is exclusively gold coins; the same value in silver would have been about ten times heavier. It could have been a ransom paid or perhaps a share of the loot that had to be hidden afterwards," Petr Vorel, numismatist at the East Bohemian Museum in Pardubice, said at the time.
Photo gallery of the treasure here: Treasure found at Králík
According to archaeologists, the coins were preserved. This implies that they were not in circulation for so long. They were found in places where a now defunct road led in the past. The youngest coin dates from 1631.
The Hungarian ducats from the 1730s were also very well preserved. A significant part of the find consists of older Dutch and Polish ducats, and the presence of Turkish coins is also unusual," Vorel explained.
The coins were probably stored in a leather bag or pouch, which the owner had hidden underground, but not very deeply. Due to ploughing, some of the coins were later scattered outside.
Sources: www.kralicky.eu, www.idnes.cz, www.denik.cz
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