Dutch Historian Finds Rare 1.000-Year-Old Middle-century Gold Treasure

Gold jewelry found by Dutch historian. (Source: West-Friesland/Fleur Schwinning)

JAKARTA - A Dutch historian discovered a unique 1,000-year-old gold treasure, consisting of four gold earLAGS, two gold leaves and 39 silver coins, the Dutch National Antiquities Museum (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden) said.

Lorenzo Ruijter, 27, who has been hunting for treasure since he was 10, discovered the treasure in 2021 in a small town north of Hoogwoud, using a metal detector.

"Finding something so valuable like this is so special, I can't describe it. I never expected to find something like this," Ruijter said, adding that it was difficult to keep it a secret for two years.

However, experts from the National Museum of Antiquities need time to clean up, investigate and determine the age of these treasure items.

Now, they managed to determine, the youngest coins could have come from 1250, which led them to assume that the treasure had been buried at the time.

At the time, the jewelry was two centuries old, the museum said, adding that the jewelry must have become "expensive and valuable property".

"Gold ornamental from the Middle Ages is very rare in the Netherlands," the museum said.

While it remains a mystery why the treasure was buried, the museum pointed out that there was a raging war between the Dutch region, West Friesland and the Netherlands in the mid-13th century, with Hoogwoud as its center.

Lorenzo said there was a possibility that someone in power at the time buried these valuables as a way to protect them and hoped to revive them when they were safe.

Given the archaeological value, the treasure was given as a loan to the museum that would show it off, but would still be the official property of its inventor, Lorenzo Ruijter.