31.3.1936 Poděbrady Denarius Treasure

Almost 1400 denarii were found in 1936 by farmers in a field near Poděbrady. The depot contained coins from the reign of Prince Boleslav I, and also Boleslav II. It alsocontains coins minted by Soběslav of the Slavník family and a few Bavarian coins.

The hoard contains exactly 1408 coins. Denarii make up the vast majority of the depot, namely 1394. They date from the tenth century, when denarii were used as a currency in the Czech lands. The treasure was found in 1936 by complete accident. Poděbrady boasted of its treasure in 2012, when it put the coins on public display.

Photos from the exhibition here: Poděbrady Treasure

The Poděbrady Treasure has been exhibited only twice in the last thirty years. In 1998 on the occasion of the European Heritage Days in Poděbrady and in 2010 it formed the basis of the exhibition The Oldest Silver Treasures in the National Museum in Prague. For security reasons, it is not part of the permanent exhibition. The value of the coins is incalculable. The cost of providing security would be really high.

"The value of a single coin, as Ibrāhīm ibn Yaqub (a Jewish Arabic-speaking merchant from al-Andalus living in tencentury), was such that for one denarius a man could live in Bohemia for up to a month," said Petr Šorm, historian of the Polabský Museum in Poděbrady. "In Bohemia, they were used for the slave trade, which Czech warriors hunted in the territories of thePoland and Ukraine and sold them on to Spain and Arab Africa," the historian added.

The treasure was found by four farmers from Poděbrady in 1936, when they were ploughing the village field. The land was to be used as a racecourse. A plough had damaged the container in which the coins were contained. He cut it in such a way that the bottom part remained in the ground and the top part spilled directly into the furrow.

The farmers had no idea at first that these were precious denarii. At first they thought they had discovered stamps or tokens. It wasn't until later that they discovered the denarius depot. It is the most numerous Czech coinage from the period of the early Czech state.

"The coins found were minted by Prince Boleslav I and especially Boleslav II, the hoard also contains coins minted by Soběslav of the Slavníkov family and it also contains a few Bavarian coins," Šorm further revealed.

Sources: www.irozhlas.cz, www.ceskatelevize.cz, http://stribrnak.cz/