A Dutch historian found a unique 1000-year-old medieval treasure

A Dutch historian found a unique 1,000-year-old medieval gold treasure consisting of four gold pendants, two strips of gold leaf and 39 silver coins, Dutch National Museum of Antiquities (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden).

Lorenzo Ruiter, 27, who told Reuters he had been searching for treasure since he was 10 years old, discovered the treasure in 2021 in the small northern town of Hoogwood using a metal detector.

“It was a very special discovery of something so precious, I can't describe it. I never expected to discover something like this," Ruiter said, adding that it was difficult to keep it a secret for two years.

But it took time for experts at the National Museum of Antiquities to clean, examine and date the items in the hoard, and now they have found that the youngest coin can be dated to around 1250, leading them to believe that the hoard was buried then.

At the time, the jewelry was already two centuries old, the museum said, adding that it was already "a more expensive and expensive possession."

"Gold jewelry from the High Middle Ages is extremely rare in the Netherlands," the museum also said.

Although it remains a mystery why exactly the treasure was buried, the museum noted that in the mid-13th century there was a war between the Dutch regions of West Friesland and Holland, the epicenter of which was Hoogwood.

Lorenzo said that perhaps someone powerful at the time hid the valuables to protect them and hoped to dig them up when it was safe again.

Given its archaeological importance, the treasure was given to a museum to display it, but it will remain the official property of finder Lorenzo Ruyter.