21. 7. 2008 Soběslav Coin Treasure

A pile of rusted, sealed blisters that resembled old coins was discovered by František Dedek during a walk in 2008. As an exemplary finder, he contacted the Tábor Museum. The depot contained four hundred different coins.

It all started with the construction of a new road and intersection in Soběslav. It was necessary to modify the flow of the Černovický brook. It is a right-side tributary of the Lužnice River, which drains a small area in the south-west of the Pelhřimov district and the south-eastern part of the Tábor district. Its length is more than thirteen kilometres.

The stream formed a right angle where Obchodní Street crosses into Tyršova Street and adjoined Wilson Street. In the past, the Modlík mill, formerly called Drbal's mill, was located there and was one of the first buildings in the Soběslav suburb of Tabor. It was nationalised in 1953 but fell into disrepair over the next decade and was demolished in 1994.

It was during the construction work, when workers were building a new weir, that the coin treasure surfaced. During a walk, František Dedek found it, namely 95 coins. He first noticed two green speckles. When he scraped the dirt off them, he found out it was money. The next morning, he contacted the museum with his 2.5 kilogram treasure.

"Like a model citizen, he immediately reported the find to the staff of the Tábor museum. However, when the finder led the archaeologists to the site of the find, they discovered that in the meantime, a considerable amount of soil had been removed and taken to a landfill outside Soběslav. By taking immediate action, the archaeologists from Tábor managed to save about half of the coins," said Daniel Abazid, the head of the museum at the time.

The clay was taken to a landfill near České Budějovice. The archaeologists of the Hussite Museum laboriously searched the soil there in a terrain full of nettles and thistles, bit by bit, four truckloads. In a lightning action, they managed to save about 300 more coins.

A year and a half after the discovery, Dedek received a reward of 7.5 percent of the valuation of the coins found. He refused to disclose the exact amount to the finder because he was afraid that people would envy him.

"It made me happy, thank you, we will have a nice Christmas. Well, or we'd better save the money now in times of crisis," Dedek planned how to handle the reward.

Sources: www.jcted.cz, www.vodnimlyny.cz, www.denik.cz