A worker accidentally unearths medieval treasures

Go to help you build a house, a worker stumbles upon a treasure with 14,000 coins dating back to the Middle Ages.

About 14,000 medieval coins , some of which were minted under the reign of King Richard I (as king from 1189) , were displayed to the public on September 8, 2019 in Guéret, county in the Nouvelle region- Aquitaine, Creuse Province, central France. Richard I is also known as the Lion Heart Richard or the Lion Heart Richard (Richard the Lionheart).

These coins, the oldest, date back to 1106.

Discovered casually on a farm in Vareilles, Creuse in 2014, these coins will soon be sold to collectors, the Bleu Creuse newspaper said.

These coins, the oldest, dating back to 1106, were excavated from private land by a man helping a friend build a new building. When digging the foundation with an excavator, he ran into a 15kg chest with metal ligaments. The lucky man shared the digging treasure with his friend. To study ancient coins, he contacted Dominique Dussot, a numerical researcher and archaeologist of Drac (General Department of Cultural Affairs of Limoges).

After 5 years of research, Mr. Dussot discovered that the coins came from 28 different areas around: Nantes, Provins, Bordeaux, Puy-en-Velay, Limoges, Poitiers, Turenne, Vendome and other places. Most come from the Marche county of the present Creuse.

"It is a special treasure by the number of coins, not by value," Mr. Dussot explained. According to this archaeologist, the ancient coins probably belonged to a trader or a tax collector because only that could explain the origin of the coins.

The owners of these treasures want to sell them but the coins are difficult to value, Dussot said. Some coins cost about one hundred euros, but some are damaged so they will be of very low value. Collectors paid 15,000 euros for the entire treasure, but the owner declined in hopes of selling higher amounts in the coin market, Le Parisien newspaper said.

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