X Marks The Spot On These Facts About Hidden Treasures
Get out your metal detectors and sledge hammers and put your hard hats on—oh, and if you’re having any renovation done, you might want to agree with your contractors who gets to keep any treasure that may be found. Here are 43 facts about the largest, most important and most surprising hidden treasures ever discovered!
43. Bactrian Gold
In 1978, a year before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, archaeologists stumbled upon a literal treasure trove of gold, silver and ivory jewellery in six burial mounds in northern Afghanistan. The gold was buried on what’s now known as Tillya tepe, literally “Golden Hill,” somewhere between 100 BC and 100 AD. The hoard consists of 20,060 golden ornaments and coins. The gold went missing again during the Afghanistan civil wars but has since been recovered and is displayed in museums worldwide.
42. Iron Age Grave
An Iron Age tomb brimming with treasures made of gold, bronze and amber was found at Heuneburg, Germany in 2017, buried by a Celtic people in 583 BC. Thought to be the grave of a priestess, the tomb also included a petrified sea urchin. Besides the precious metal artifacts, excavators also found textiles, furs, carved boxwood objects and ornaments made of boar’s horns.
41. Roman Piggy Bank
A modest pot bellied clay jar was dug up by metal detector enthusiast David Crisp in Frome, England. Frome must have been surprised when he opened the jar to reveal 52,503 Roman coins, the largest cache ever found in England. Valued at £320,250, many of the coins are too corroded or dirty to identify, but certain silver coins, minted by Emperor Carausius, are of a finer condition than the ones in the British Museum.
40. An Eggy Investment
A Midwestern man thought he lost big when he spent $14,000 on a gold and jewelled decorative egg that turned out to only be worth $500 in materials. However, his luck changed when the egg was revealed to be a Fabergé Imperial Egg, lost since the 1800s. The egg was commissioned by Tsar Alexander III for his wife, Maria Feodorovna in 1887. It is one of only 43 surviving Fabergé eggs and it's worth an estimated $33 million. Not a bad return on investment.
