The Balle Hoard (Danish : Balleskatten), found in Balle, Djursland, is one of the largest 17th-century hoards ever discovered in Denmark. It consists of 12,121 coins, a silver tankard, a smaller silver cup, jewellery and garment components. The youngest of the coins date from 1658, indicating that the hoard was buried during the early stage of the Second Northern War when Charles X Gustav of Sweden's troops ransacked Jutland. [1]
The Balle Hoard was discovered on 12 February 1968 when a bulldozer worked on the construction of a new parking lot at Balle Post Office. It was found by the construction workers Marius Jensen (Attrup Kær) and Charles Sørensen (Ny Balle). Agnete Jørgensen from Balle Post Office assisted them contacting Djursland Museum. The excavation work was carried out by Hovesen. Jensen and Sørensen would later receive DKK 12,000 in Danefæ compensation. [2]
The Balle Hoard comprises a total of 12,121 coins. 11,569 of them are Danish coins struck during the reigns of Christian IV and Frederick III. [2]
359 of the foreign coins were thalers (277 one-thalers, 49 half-thalers and 38 quarter-thalers). They mainly entered the country through the cattle trade and Sound Dues where they were subsequently circulated alongside the Danish coins. [2]
The other objects include: [2]
The Balle Hoard was discovered just 30 cm (12 in) below the surface of the ground. The objects were placed in a wooden trough or tray. Many of the larger silver coins were together with the small silver cup, the silver cross and the silver belt placed inside the tankard. [2]
Filigree is a form of intricate metalwork used in jewellery and other small forms of metalwork.
The Hoxne Hoard is the largest hoard of late Roman silver and gold discovered in Britain, and the largest collection of gold and silver coins of the fourth and fifth centuries found anywhere within the former Roman Empire. It was found by Eric Lawes, a metal detectorist in the village of Hoxne in Suffolk, England in 1992. The hoard consists of 14,865 Roman gold, silver, and bronze coins and approximately 200 items of silver tableware and gold jewellery. The objects are now in the British Museum in London, where the most important pieces and a selection of the rest are on permanent display. In 1993, the Treasure Valuation Committee valued the hoard at £1.75 million.
The Pereshchepina Treasure is a major deposit of Bulgar, Sassanian, Sogdian, Turkic and Avarian objects from the Migration Period.
The Erfurt Treasure is a hoard of coins, goldsmiths' work and jewellery that is assumed to have belonged to a Jew of Erfurt, Germany who hid them in 1349 before perishing in the Erfurt massacre, one of the persecutions and massacres of Jews during the Black Death. The treasure was found in 1998 in the wall of a house in a medieval Jewish neighbourhood in Erfurt.
The Środa Treasure is a hoard of silver and gold coins, plus gold jewellery and some precious stones. The hoard dates from the mid 14th century. Its largest component is silver coins, of which there are about 3,000 pieces. The hoard was found in years 1985–1988 during renovation works in Silesian town of Środa Śląska, Poland. Today it is mostly kept in the Regional Museum in Środa Śląska.
The Vale of York Hoard, also known as the Harrogate Hoard and the Vale of York Viking Hoard, is a 10th-century Viking hoard of 617 silver coins and 65 other items. It was found undisturbed in 2007 near the town of Harrogate in North Yorkshire, England. The hoard was the largest Viking one discovered in Britain since 1840, when the Cuerdale hoard was found in Lancashire, though the Anglo-Saxon Staffordshire Hoard, found in 2009, is larger.
Hacksilver consists of fragments of cut and bent silver items that were used as bullion or as currency by weight in antiquity.
The Thetford Hoard is a hoard of Romano-British metalwork found by Arthur and Greta Brooks at Gallows Hill, near Thetford in Norfolk, England, in November 1979, and now in the British Museum. Dating from the mid- to late-4th century AD, this hoard is a collection of thirty-three silver spoons and three silver strainers, twenty-two gold finger rings, four gold bracelets, four necklace pendants, five gold chain necklaces and two pairs of necklace-clasps, a gold amulet designed as a pendant, an unmounted engraved gem, four beads, and a gold belt-buckle decorated with a dancing satyr. A small cylindrical lidded box made from shale also belonged to the hoard.
The Staffordshire Hoard is the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork yet found. It consists of almost 4,600 items and metal fragments, amounting to a total of 5.1 kg (11 lb) of gold, 1.4 kg (3 lb) of silver and some 3,500 pieces of garnet cloisonné jewellery. It is described by the historian Cat Jarman as "possibly the finest collection of early medieval artefacts ever discovered".
Events from the year 1968 in Denmark.
Trewhiddle style is a distinctive style in Anglo-Saxon art that takes its name from the Trewhiddle Hoard, discovered in Trewhiddle, Cornwall in 1770. Trewhiddle ornamentation includes the use of silver, niello inlay, and zoomorphic, plant and geometric designs, often interlaced and intricately carved into small panels. Famous examples include the Pentney Hoard, the Abingdon sword, the Fuller brooch, and the Strickland brooch.
The archaeological sites Randlev and Hesselbjerg refer to two closely related excavations done throughout the 20th century near the village of Randlev in the Odder Municipality of Denmark, three kilometers southeast of the town of Odder. Randlev is known primarily for its Romanesque church constructed sometime around 1100 A.D. Hesselbjerg refers to the large Viking-Age cemetery discovered on the Hesselbjerg family farm and the site Randlev refers to the nearby settlement from the same period. Although both Randlev and Hesselbjerg were contemporaneous and encompass a similar area, Hesselbjerg refers more specifically to the 104 graves discovered prior to the later excavation at the site Randlev, which pertains to the Viking Age settlement. The settlement consisted of a farm complex that was likely active during the ninth and tenth centuries; finds from the site such as silver hoards and elaborate jewelry indicate that the farm was likely prosperous, a conjecture which is supported by the extremely fertile land surrounding the area. Artifacts were found in the vicinity of the Hesselbjerg and Randlev sites as early as 1932 when a local farmer discovered a silver hoard, but serious excavations were not conducted until 1963. These excavations ended in 1970; however, Moesgård Museum returned to the site in 1997 and continued analysis until 2010.
The Canterbury Treasure is an important late Roman silver hoard found in the city of Canterbury, Kent, south-east England, ancient Durovernum Cantiacorum, in 1962, and now in the Roman Museum, Canterbury, Kent. Copies of the main items are also kept in the British Museum.
Viking coinage was used during the Viking Age of northern Europe. Prior to the usage and minting of coins, the Viking economy was predominantly a bullion economy, where the weight and size of a particular metal is used as a method of evaluating value, as opposed to the value being determined by the specific type of coin. By the ninth century, the Viking raids brought them into contact with cultures well familiarised with the use of coins in economies of Europe, hence influencing the Vikings own production of coins.
The Boscoreale Treasure is the name for a large collection of exquisite silver and gold Roman objects discovered in the ruins of the ancient Villa della Pisanella at Boscoreale, near Pompeii, southern Italy. Consisting of over a hundred pieces of silverware, as well as gold coins and jewellery, it is now mostly kept at the Louvre Museum in Paris, although parts of the treasure can also be found at the British Museum.
Airdeconut was a Norse King of Northumbria. Numismatic evidence suggests he was a Christian and he probably ruled in Northern England around the year 900.
Costume and gold and silver plate belonging to Elizabeth I were recorded in several inventories, and other documents including rolls of New Year's Day gifts. Arthur Jefferies Collins published the Jewels and Plate of Queen Elizabeth I: The Inventory of 1574 from manuscripts in 1955. The published inventory describes jewels and silver-plate belonging to Elizabeth with detailed references to other source material. Two inventories of Elizabeth's costume and some of her jewellery were published by Janet Arnold in Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlocke'd.
The Talnotrie Hoard is a 9th-century mixed hoard of jewellery, coinage, metal-working objects and raw materials found in Talnotrie, Scotland, in 1912. Initially assumed to have belonged to a Northumbrian metal-worker, more recent interpretations associate its deposition with the activities of the Viking Great Army.
The Slagelse Hoard, discovered in 1883 beneath a tile floor in a Medieval cellar on Smedegade in Slagelse, is the largest Medieval gold hoard ever discovered in Denmark.
The Kirial Hoard, found near Kirial, Gjursland, is the largest treasure trove ever found in Denmark. It consists of 81,422 silver coins buried in two iron pots and dates from around 1365. Most of the hoard is now on display in the National Museum of Denmark. A minor share of the coins is on display in the local Djirsland Museum in Grenå.