PHOTOS: Rare, 500-year-old, Ottoman-era treasure found in Hungary

The oldest silver coins found near Nemesvámos, a small Hungarian village close to Veszprém, are from between 1501 and 1506, an era when the Polish Jagiellonian dynasty ruled Hungary after the death of probably the greatest Hungarian king, Matthias I. But most coins date back to the Ottoman era, following the Battle of Mohács, which marked the downfall of medieval Hungary.

According to Blikk, a Hungarian tabloid, the sensational discovery was made by an amateur Hungarian treasure hunter. The cache contained 155 items, mostly coins, dating back to the 16th century. Some are rare, so their sentimental value is high, but their physical value is “only” around HUF 500,000 (EUR 1,331). Zoltán Krámli, an amateur “treasure hunter”, who conducts searches with his metal detector, found the artefacts in the soil near Nemesvámos. Though he found the silver treasure in 2022, the Laczkó Dezső Museum presented them only now after proper restoration, identification and cleaning.

Mr Krámli has been searching for coins and other precious metals buried in the earth for a decade. “I walked around systematically, but I did not find anything for four hours”, he told Blikk. First, his device detected only one coin. He took it and put it into a bag. Then he started to make circles around him and found much more coins. Finally, he found 154 coins, a tin-lead ring and a silver medal in a 1.5-2m radius.

Here is the ring and the coins:

Here is what probably happened with the treasure half a millennium ago

Probably somebody tried to seal it in a haversack and hide in the hillside. But they could never retrieve the wealth, so the coins remained in the soil. Later, erosion could drift the bag and its content down the slope, and they ended up near the field, Krámli guessed.

He has been helping the local museum for a long time and searches the area with permission. Therefore, he notified the authorities though he needed to call them 25 times to reach them then since it was Sunday. Finally, it lasted one year to clean every coin one after the other professionally. Brigitta Péterváry-Szanyi, the director of the museum, said that most of the coins found were made in Körmöcbánya, which was one of the biggest mints in the Hungarian Kingdom. Their owner probably hid them during the Ottoman siege of the nearby fort of Veszprém.

Interested in Hungarian History? HERE is another article about King Mathias’s Romanian heritage and another ONE about the languages that had a great influence on the Hungarian.