12.6. 1771 Finding of the underwater treasure

It is estimated that the treasure of the underwater treasure consisted of up to seven thousand gold coins. It was found on 12 June 1771 after the flood by a poor farmer. The depot was subsequently seized by the local prince, who ordered thorough searches. Straws were torn up and even floors were ripped out.

Exactly on 12 June 1771, a flood crossed the village of Podmokly in the Rokycany region. On the same day Jan Koch, called Janota, from house number 7, found several irises, i.e. gold Celtic coins, in the undercut slumped bank of the stream. He was a very poor man and had no idea what he had found or what metal it was. I don't think he'd ever seen gold, he worked as a labourer. He took some of the irises to play with for the children.

A local Jewish merchant noticed them and knew immediately that the children were playing with gold. "So the word got out that the "buttons" were worth something, and people went to the brook to get them. It didn't last long, however, because the owner of the estate, Karl Egon Fürstenberg, found out about the treasure. As a proper prince, owner of large estates and royal governor in Prague, he could not, of course, let the poorJitka Splítková describes in her book On the Trail of Mysterious Artists and Mysterious Treasures.

The prince sent his biřice led by Kašpar Růžička to the village, who confiscated all the gold objects. Of course, before the inhabitants returned the gold coins, the local men were first soundly whipped by the dragon on the benches. The most stubborn non-returners ended up in the Křivoklát hunger strike.

"Really thorough searches followed. Straws were torn up and even floors were ripped up. At the end, the actuary had the place shown to him and had it thoroughly dug up. It wasn't for nothing, he found a cracked bronze cauldron which contained another three thousand or so gold rounds and a bracelet. In this way, the prince took possession of the entire treasure," writes Vladimír Mátl in his book In the Footsteps of the Celts.

Once the prince received the gold, he did not slack off, had the precious Celtic relic melted down and the gold stamped into both Theresian ducats and pennies with his coat of arms and genetically unbalanced face.

It is estimated that the hoard consisted of between five and seven thousand gold coins weighing between 30 and 43 kilograms and with a purity of up to 986/1000. It was stored in a bronze cauldron, and it was from its remains that archaeologist Professor Jan Erazim Vocel discovered in 1850 that it was a Celtic hoard and the coins were so-called irises. About twenty of them also found their way to the National Museum and the remains of the cauldron and a few coins to the Křivoklát Museum.

The coins are so called because Koch coins were discovered by farmers in the fields elsewhere in Bohemia and Bavaria.The coins were washed out of the kettles by a stream of water and the money washed to the surface of the ploughed field, where it glistened and could not be missed. "The people knew that the Celts had lived in this territory before them, and they deposited their money in the ground as in a vault, or made offerings to the gods in this way. They simply thought that the irises were formed at the point where the rainbow touched the earth. Beautiful in a fairy-tale way and foolish in reason ...," Splítková writes.

Sources:
Jitka Splítková: On the trail of mysterious artists and mysterious treasures
Vladimír Mátl: In the Footsteps of the Celts
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