While scouring a farm in Poland for abandoned tractor parts, a metal detector enthusiast stumbled upon an unexpected treasure. Hidden beneath the earth was a stunning hoard of coins dating back to the 17th century, revealing a fascinating glimpse into Poland’s rich history.
The hoard — a vast stash of about 1,000 copper coins — was found in late February near the small village of Zaniówka in eastern Poland, near the borders with Belarus and Ukraine, by a local man, Michał Łotys.
Łotys was using a new metal detector to find spare parts for his sister’s tractor; and so when the instrument started beeping in one of the farm’s fields, he scraped away a layer of the topsoil. That revealed the coins spilling out of a broken clay “siwak” — a jug in a local style with one handle and a narrow neck.
Using a metal detector to search for buried relics without a permit is illegal in Poland, and so Łotys contacted archaeologists in the nearby city of Lublin, about 95 miles (150 kilometers) southeast of Warsaw, who visited the farm the next day.
Their investigations showed that the location of the hidden hoard was clearly outlined on the surface of the soil, which indicated it had been buried there intentionally, according to a report in the Polish news outlet The First News(opens in new tab).
Buried hoard
Dariusz Kopciowski, the director of Lublin’s heritage conservation agency, announced in a Facebook post(opens in new tab) on March 2 that the hoard has about 1,000 Polish and Lithuanian copper coins minted in the 17th century.
Oxidation after roughly 400 years in the ground means all the copper coins are now colored green; and many have corroded together in layers. But about 115 of the coins are loose, and the entire hoard weighs about 6.6 pounds (3 kilograms), Kopciowski noted.
Investigations show most of the coins were created between 1663 and 1666 in mints in Warsaw; Vilnius in Lithuania; and Brest, which is now in Belarus but was then part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Burattini, an Italian, was a famed inventor and polymath who introduced copper coins to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth because they were much cheaper to make than the existing silver coins of the realm; and because its treasury was devastated after years of war with Sweden, Russia and Cossacks.
The “boratynki” coins were initially popular, although Burattini was later accused of debasing the copper metal they were made of and reaping huge profits.
