PHOTO GALLERY: 700-year-old treasure found in the Hungarian Visegrád Palace
In Visegrád, a 700-year-old gilded silver jewel has been discovered in the former royal palace, which also adorned the dress of Queen Elisabeth Piast.
During the archaeological excavations in preparation for the Visegrád Renaissance Development Programme, the oldest surviving building of the first royal palace in Visegrád and a unique Anjou-period jewel were unearthed. Near the former palace chapel dedicated to St. George, at the foot of Castle Hill, stood the large Anjou-period mansion that has now been excavated. On the site of a late 13th-century town chalet, a stone building with one storey, likely of tower-like design, was built in the time of Charles I (Robert). Next to it, on the courtyard level of the period, a pair of gilded, cast-silver clothes pegs were found by experts using a metal detecting technique, according to the Visegrad Renaissance Facebook page.
The jewellery is a finely crafted pair of clasps with openwork decoration, just 3.5 cm wide. Such ornaments were used to tie the necklines of women’s dresses in the Middle Ages. Though this fashion persisted until the 16th century, the recovered piece dates back to the first half of the 14th century.
There is speculation that the jewel might have once belonged to Queen Elisabeth Piast herself, the wife of Charles I. This assumption arises from the belief that the excavated building was constructed for her residence.
References from the mid-1340s mention the independent Visegrád mansion of the widowed Queen Elisabeth. Following King Charles’s death, the building underwent expansion and transformation into a single-storey house.
“It was not demolished until the late 14th century, in the reign of Queen Mary. Later, King Sigismund built a Franciscan monastery nearby, but the site of the old queen’s mansion remained undeveloped and is now the only visible example of the early Angevin royal residence in Visegrád,” reads the Facebook post.
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