It only costs a few dollars to buy a jar of bait worms. fishingbut many people are willing to get them straight from the ground. And who knows? There's always a chance you'll find more than squirming invertebrates in the mud.
Take a recent example near Stockholm, Sweden: According to County officials last monthan unnamed fisherman searching for worms in his summer home discovered a rusted copper cauldron containing approx. 13 pounds of treasure from the Middle Ages. The count is still underway, but preliminary estimates put it at about 20,000. silver coinsrings, pendants and other jewelry were discovered.
“This may be one of the largest early medieval silver treasures found in Sweden,” antiquarian and county councilor Sofia Andersson. says the statement translation from Swedish.
Most of the coins date from the 12th century, and some are stamped with “CANATUS,” the Latin name of King Cnut Eriksson. Eriksson was born no later than the 1140s and ruled medieval Sweden from 1172 until his death around 1195.
The king presided over an era in which the written word became increasingly important, especially as a bureaucratic tool. He also minted a new royal coin, the issue of which was suspended by the former monarchs for about two decades. Most historians ultimately consider his reign a relative success, given that Eriksson was the first Swedish monarch since 1118 AD to die of natural causes since King Philip in 1118 AD. Many of his predecessors met more brutal deaths in battle or through disease.
In addition to Erikson's KANATUS currency, the cauldron also contained rarer “bishop coins” minted in Europe during the Middle Ages for the clergy. Many of these coins from the haul depict a bishop holding a ceremonial staff, known as a crozier, in his right hand, and possibly a church on the reverse side. Images on these coins invite the clergy to actively negotiate with kings and had considerable power in medieval Sweden.
Laboratory analysis and processing of the artifacts is still ongoing, but it is likely that the finder will receive enough compensation to buy all the bait he wants in the conceivable future. Swedish law gives anyone who discovers an “ancient silver find” a chance to receive a finder's reward, according to Stockholm County officials.
2025 Holiday Gift Guide
