A hoard or "wealth deposit" is an archaeological term for a collection of valuable objects or artifacts , sometimes purposely buried in the ground, in which case it is sometimes also known as a cache . This would usually be with the intention of later recovery by the hoarder; hoarders sometimes died or were unable to return for other reasons (forgetfulness or physical displacement from its location) before retrieving the hoard, and these surviving hoards might then be uncovered much later by metal detector hobbyists, members of the public, and archaeologists .
18-462: The Great Kentucky Hoard is a hoard of more than 700 gold coins unearthed in an undisclosed part of Kentucky , United States, in the 2020s by a man on his own land. The finder of the hoard has remained anonymous. There were a total of more than 800 Civil War –era coins, of which over 700 were gold coins. The Numismatic Guaranty Company (NGC), a coin-certifying company, put the coins in coin slabs ( sealed holders ) . The website GovMint sold
36-660: A decade or two), and therefore used in creating chronologies. Hoards can also be considered an indicator of the relative degree of unrest in ancient societies. Thus conditions in 5th and 6th century Britain spurred the burial of hoards, of which the most famous are the Hoxne Hoard , Suffolk; the Mildenhall Treasure , the Fishpool Hoard , Nottinghamshire, the Water Newton hoard, Cambridgeshire, and
54-620: A letter mentioning a cache worth $ 20,000 in Paducah (equivalent to $ 494,919 in 2023). Ryan McNutt, a conflict archaeologist from Georgia Southern University opined that, based on the dating of the hoard, the cache was buried in advance of Morgan's Raid , a major offensive through Kentucky into the Midwest by Confederate general John Hunt Morgan in June–July 1863, concurrent to that of Gettysburg and Vicksburg . Ninety-five percent of
72-460: A temple or church become the property of that institution, and may be used to its benefit. Fishpool Hoard In 1966 the Fishpool Hoard of 1,237 15th century gold coins, four rings and four other pieces of jewellery, and two lengths of gold chain was discovered by workmen on a building site near present-day Cambourne Gardens, in Ravenshead , Nottinghamshire , England, an area that
90-784: The Cuerdale Hoard , Lancashire, all preserved in the British Museum . Prudence Harper of the Metropolitan Museum of Art voiced some practical reservations about hoards at the time of the Soviet exhibition of Scythian gold in New York City in 1975. Writing of the so-called "Maikop treasure" (acquired from three separate sources by three museums early in the twentieth century, the Berliner Museen ,
108-574: The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology , and the Metropolitan Museum, New York), Harper warned: By the time "hoards" or "treasures" reach museums from the antiquities market, it often happens that miscellaneous objects varying in date and style have become attached to the original group. Such "dealer's hoards" can be highly misleading, but better understanding of archaeology amongst collectors, museums and
126-602: The British Museum, London , was listed in 2003 among Our Top Ten Treasures , a special episode of BBC Television series Meet the Ancestors that profiled the ten most important treasures ever unearthed in Britain as voted by a panel of experts from the British Museum. The British Museum assesses the face value of the hoard when deposited, about £400, would be equivalent to around £300,000 today. The makeup of
144-582: The NGC and subsequently sold by the website GovMint. The discovery of this cache is significant as the latest pieces dated to 1863, the height of the American Civil War, and as such, is one such physical evidence of lost Civil War gold that permeates American pop culture . Hoard Hoards provide a useful method of providing dates for artifacts through association as they can usually be assumed to be contemporary (or at least assembled during
162-550: The cache consists of gold dollars consisting of Type I, Type II, and Type III variants from 1854 to 1862. Twenty Liberty Head eagles ($ 10) were identified to date from 1840 to 1862, along with 8 Liberty Head double eagles ($ 20) dating from 1857 to 1862. The dating of the hoard is from a set of eighteen 1863 Double Eagles, made in the Philadelphia Mint . Variants of the circulating coins include three 1862 doubled die Dollar variants dubbed FS-101. It
180-438: The coinage, as well as dating the hoard, showed that the light coinage of 1412 did not eliminate earlier gold coins. Among the coins were detected some nearly contemporary gold-plated counterfeit coins from the reign of Henry VI (1422–61). The jewellery is all in gold, with several items set with gems or using enamel . Apart from the four rings there are three pendants and a heart-shaped brooch, which like some other items
198-492: The coins. The coins were found in a cornfield in Kentucky sometime before 2023; the exact location was not revealed. The person who found the hoard requested anonymity and sources say that he is a man. Many of the coins were found in the ground with pieces of a cloth bag and one of the coins was damaged from farm equipment. There were a total of 800 Civil War –era coins in the hoard and 700 of them were gold coins. The date on
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#1732790302133216-430: The general public is gradually making them less common and more easily identified. Hoards may be of precious metals , coinage , tools or less commonly, pottery or glass vessels. There are various classifications depending on the nature of the hoard: A founder's hoard contains broken or unfit metal objects, ingots , casting waste, and often complete objects, in a finished state. These were probably buried with
234-419: The intention to be recovered at a later time. A merchant's hoard is a collection of various functional items which, it is conjectured, were buried by a traveling merchant for safety, with the intention of later retrieval. A personal hoard is a collection of personal objects buried for safety in times of unrest. A hoard of loot is a buried collection of spoils from raiding and is more in keeping with
252-639: The latest coins of the hoard was 1863. In May 1861 the Kentucky Legislature passed a Declaration of Neutrality which was violated many times soon after. Amongst such incursions, many wealthy residents at the time were rumored to bury their savings, to prevent it from being confiscated by the Confederates . Such significant caches alleged to be hidden included $ 80,000 worth of gold by resident William Pettit of Lexington (equivalent to $ 1,979,676 in 2023), along with James Langstaff, who wrote
270-422: The nature of the goods themselves (from animal bones to diminutive artifacts), the places buried (being often associated with watery places, burial mounds and boundaries), and the treatment of the deposit (careful or haphazard placement and whether ritually destroyed/broken). Valuables dedicated to the use of a deity (and thus classifiable as "votive") were not always permanently abandoned. Valuable objects given to
288-476: The popular idea of " buried treasure ". Votive hoards are different from the above in that they are often taken to represent permanent abandonment, in the form of purposeful deposition of items, either all at once or over time for ritual purposes, without intent to recover them . Furthermore, votive hoards need not be "manufactured" goods, but can include organic amulets and animal remains. Votive hoards are often distinguished from more functional deposits by
306-490: Was noted that the 1861 dollars had medallic alignment imperfections, and a new 1862 error (two specimens), where the date was re-punched twice, which was then dubbed variant VP-002 by the Numismatic Guaranty Company (NGC). Following the discovery, NGC slabbed the pieces with a specific label tracing the coins back to the hoard. The hoard was publicized through the certification of the coins through
324-752: Was then known as "Fishpool". It is the largest hoard of medieval coins ever found in Britain. To judge from the dates of the coins , the hoard was probably buried in haste at some time between winter 1463 and summer 1464, perhaps by someone fleeing south after the Battle of Hexham in May 1464, in the first stages of England's civil war between aristocratic factions, the War of the Roses . The Fishpool Hoard, on display in Room 40 in
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