17th-Century Coin Hoard Uncovered in Poland

ZANIÓWKA, POLAND—Live Science reports that a metal detectorist discovered a cache of some 1,000 copper coins on a farm in eastern Poland while looking for missing tractor parts. The coins had been placed in a one-handled jug with a narrow neck known locally as a siwak. Provincial heritage conservator Dariusz Kopciowski said that most of the Polish and Lithuanian coins were minted between 1663 and 1666. Oxidation of the metal has bound about 60 of the coins together, he added. More than 570 million of these coins, called boratynki today after Titus Livius Boratini, a seventeenth-century manager of the Kraków mint, were produced after Poland had been devastated by wars with Sweden and Russia. “Around 1,000 boratynki would pay for two pairs of shoes,” Kopciowski explained. He thinks the person who buried the hoard of coins may have been killed by enemy forces, or perhaps moved away before the treasure could be recovered. The coins will be sent to the Southern Podlasie Museum. To read about another archaeological discovery in Poland, go to "Viking Knights, Polish Days."