During A Construction Project In Germany’s Black Forest, More Than 1,500 Medieval Silver Coins Were Found
During a construction project in Germany’s Black Forest, more than 1,500 medieval silver coins were unearthed.
Workers had been laying down pipes near a swimming pool in the municipality of Glottertal when they noticed what appeared to be “small metal plates.”
According to the Stuttgart Regional Council, the discovery reveals more about what mining and minting coins were like in the area 650 years ago. It is also the biggest treasure that has been found since 1949.
In 1949, archaeologists in the region of Freiburg encountered about 5,000 coins from around the 1280s.
Glottertal is located about six miles northeast of Freiburg in the Black Forest mountains. It’s renowned for its gorgeous villages, vineyards, valleys and dense evergreen forests.
Freiburg is the largest town in the area. It was founded by the House of Zähringen, a dynasty ruled by dukes from between 1120 and 1218. The city was taken over by the House of Urach after the Zähringen line ended.
“Glottertal has been one of the most important mining areas for the dukes of Freiburg,” said Andreas Haasis-Berner, an archaeologist with the State Office for Monument Preservation in Stuttgart. “The site where the coins were found was a main settlement area for miners.”
While the pipes were being installed, Haasis-Berner was notified about the find by Claus Völker, a Glottertal citizen employed by the State Office for Monument Preservation. The next day, he went over to the site and dug up 1,000 coins.
A few days later, other experts were sent to the site with metal detectors to search for more coins. Even though the weather was unfavorable with mud and rain, they did not let that stop them. In the end, they were able to excavate 500 to 600 coins.
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Once the coins were roughly cleaned, the experts determined that they were minted sometime in the 1320s and were from what is now Germany, France and Switzerland. The coins were worth enough to buy about 150 sheep.
“These are mainly coins from the Breisach, Zoginfen and Freiburg mints, which were minted around 1320,” Haasis-Berner explained. “There are also a few coins from Basel, St. Gallen, Zurich, Laufenburg and Colmar.”
Many questions about the medieval coin hoard still remain. For instance, it is unclear who the coins belonged to or how they ended up buried in the mud.
During the medieval era, miners who worked in the silver mines lived nearby, so the hoard may have belonged to one of them.
Aside from their monetary value, the coins also have a lot of historical significance, as they can shed light on Glottertal’s history and economy.
“The evaluation of this coin hoard will enable us to make statements about the circulation of coins in Breisgau, the minting activity in the mints, the silver trade, but also the mining in Glottertal,” said Haasis-Berner.
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