Olomouc, North Moravia, April 13 (CTK) – The Ethnographic Museum in Olomouc displays for the first time a unique treasure of gold coins, found on a local gallows hill in 1911, which is one the largest golden finds in the Czech Republic, the exhibition’s curator Filip Hradil told reporters yesterday.
The collection consisting of a half of 352 cold coins that were buried on Sibenik hill in Unicov is of a priceless value.
The exhibition entitled “The Unicov Golden Treasure” will be opened under strict security conditions until June 5.
The amount of coins preserved is completely unique since most of the similar finds of gold items were looted before being described, Hradil said.
A jug with the coins was dug out on Sibenik Hill by an employee of the local brickyard in Unicov in February 1911. He gave a half of the find to the museum and the other half, which is not preserved, belonged to the land owner. However, the whole collection was completely documented before it was divided.
According to experts, the owner of the coins must have been a very rich merchant as the value of the treasure corresponded to the price of a burgher’s house in Unicov at the beginning of the 17th century.
Experts say that the place where the treasure was found is also remarkable since there was a place of execution with gallows on Sibenik hill until the second half of the 18th century.
“It is apparent that the hiding of the treasure was directly connected with the execution place, which dominated the hill. There is no other find of a huge amount of coins hidden so close to gallows in the European context. In this respect, it is a rarity,” Hradil added.
The oldest coins in the collection date back to the reign of Sigismund of Luxembourg (1387-1437) and the youngest are from 1614, during the era of King Matthias of Habsburg (1608-1619). The treasure contains Hungarian, Transylvanian and Ottoman coins as well as those from the Baltics and regional coins, Czech Silesian and Austrian.
