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A hoard of gold and treasure worth more than $ 340,000 has been discovered by two hikers in the Czech Republic , and may have been obscure by people fly persecution during World War II .
The trove , a collection that include Au coins , bracelets and snuff boxes , count roughly 15 pound sterling ( 6.8 kg ) and was found inside two containers in a stone mound in a wood on Zvičina Hill , located in the foothills of the Krkonoše Mountains near the Polish border .
The coin hoard, amounting to over $340,000, was possibly hidden by people fleeing political persecution.
The 598 coin found within the first box span a broad historical period — dating from 1808 to 1915 and including currentness from France , Belgium , the Ottoman Empire , Russia and former Austria - Hungary . Several of the Austro - Hungarian coins were also stamp with mug from being reissue in 1921 in the Serbian or Bosnia - Herzegovinian state of former Yugoslavia .
" The treasure put hide in the ground for a piddling over a hundred years at most . In this particular pillow slip , however , the twelvemonth 1915 is not decisive for find out the clock time when the hoard was found on the site,“Vojtěch Brádle , a coin specialist at the Museum of Eastern Bohemia in Hradec Králové , which is care the treasure trove , said in a translated statement . " This is due to the bearing of several pieces with miniature marks ( so - call contramarks ) , which could have been added after the First World War . "
The coin boxwood was accompanied by a metal box found 3 groundwork ( 1 meter ) off . This contained 10 bracelets , 16 cigarette cases , a base made of fine wire mesh , a chain , a comb and a powder compact car . All of these particular are forge from a yellow alloy , peradventure a amber admixture .
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Experts have yet to date or establish a steady beginning for the objects , but the latest contramark on the coin date to 1921 . This and the location of the breakthrough near a former border between Czech and German small town could mean the coins were stashed as a last resort by people fleeing persecution by Nazi Germany in 1938 . ( By the end of the Second World War , just 14,000 of the region ’s 118,000Jewish population remained , the others having left or been acquit to the Theresienstadt Ghetto or to Auschwitz ) .
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But the coins could also have been stash after the war . In 1945,more than 3 million Germanswere boot out from the Czech Republic for their perceived complicity in Nazi warfare crime .
" The listing of potential reason for which it was in all probability buried is fairly clean-cut . It was the commencement of the state of war , the deportation of the Czech and Judaic populations , then the deportation of the Germans after the warfare , so there are several possibilities,“Miroslav Novák , head of archeology at the Museum of Eastern Bohemia in Hradec Králové , told Radio Prague International . " There was also a monetary reform , which could have also been a reason . "
" It was clearly not about the nominal value of the coins , whether they were worth 5 , 10 , or 100 crowns . It ’s not about what the coin could buy — that ’s not what matter , " he added . " It was deliberately hidden because it was precious metal . "
To get to the bottom of the mystery , the museum is investigating items found in the hoard for further markings , alongside scouring archive for grounds that could decipher the cache to its former owners .
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