Treasures hidden in the earth
16th-century thalers found in the outskirts of Hódmezővásárhely
MúzeumCafé 17.
Money has been a means of exchange and an important element of everyday life for many centuries. It was used in various forms and denominations, and hidden coin deposits come to light from every period. On 14 and 15 December last year the Hódmezővásárhely Tornyai János Museum organised a special excavation near the town, with the result the museum’s collection acquired a compilation of 67 silver thalers issued between 1534 and 1594, plus a gilded bronze fitting. Coins and medals hidden in the ground during the stormy period of the Ottoman Age are found quite frequently in Hungary. The recent discovery of such items was partly due to luck, since the National Office of Cultural Heritage does not keep any files on archaeological sites in the area. The museum managed to find the silver coins, originating from different parts of Europe, only by examining the area with a metal detector. The thalers were discovered at a depth of 5-35 centimetres over an area of approximately 500 square meters. The finds include a flower-shaped gilded bronze fitting, which allows us to draw the conclusion that the thalers were originally placed in an adorned purse. This way of hiding treasures is rather rare, since coins were mostly hidden in the ground in some kind of dish, most often a jug or a pot. Several similar treasures of coins have been discovered dating from the period of the Fifteen Years’ War between 1591 and 1606. In western Europe several ecclesiastical landlords obtained the right to issue coins. Hence the mixture of the find was such that it involved many different silver coins of foreign origin. This clearly confirms the known data about money circulation of the time, whether gold coins or silver thalers, freely circulated.