Rotterdam archaeologists find old shoe stuffed with medieval money
Archeologists in Rotterdam have found an old shoe stuffed with 477 silver coins during excavations behind the town hall.
Archaeologists say they have never before found a shoe filled with money, which ranges in dates from 1472 to 1592. On theory is that the owner of the shoe hid it under floorboards to protect it during the 80 Years War (1568-1648).
The value of the coins is put at ‘many thousand euros’.
That is all the text, but they have a photo of some of the coins and, presumably, the shoe in the background. Another one of these buried hoards of money that someone probably hid in a time of danger but then was unable to recover. Happily, I suppose, whoever did it in these cases at least kept it from the marauders.
I ran across a reference to a guy who figured that, what with armies and barbarians marching, cross-marching, and countermarching, Europe was lousy with buried coin hoards and he was going to get a metal detector and get rich.
Somebody asked him how many cannoballs he thought he could get through Customs at LaGuardia, and if he’d watched the old PBS, Danger, UXB.
I hear that in Belgium and other places, they lose two or three heavy construction/excavation workers or farmers to dud shells and bombs. Every year.
Comment by Richard Aubrey — February 28, 2013 @ 12:08 pm