Number 10: St. Albans Hoard
In 2012, Westley Carrington stumbled across one of the most fabulous treasures the world
has ever seen; the St. Albans Hoard. The lucky Englishman bought a metal detector on a whim,
hoping to unearth some juicy loot, but what he actually found is almost beyond comprehension.
Buried in the British countryside was one of the biggest hoards of Roman coins ever discovered in
the country. These pure gold coins date back to the 4th century and coincide with Rome’s
occupation of Great Britain. The hoard contains 159 Roman Solidi and represents five Roman reigns;
Honorius, Arcadius, Gratian, Valentinian II and Theodosius I. Although plenty of silver
and bronze Roman coins have been discovered, it’s rare to find a hoard of pure gold.
St. Albans was once called Verulamium and was a critical Roman center of power.
Today, you can check out St. Albans Hoard for yourself in the town’s Verulamium Museum.
Number 9: Saddle Ridge Hoard
In 2013, a California couple out walking their dog saw a huge, rust-covered can lying on the
ground with a dazzling treasure tucked away inside. The Saddle Ridge Hoard is the stuff of
legends, buried treasure from California’s Gold Rush era. In total, eight rusty cans
were buried in the spot, containing a grand total of 1,427 gold coins minted between 1847
and 1894. The coins themselves were not just your run-of-the-mill old dough. They came in 5 dollar,
10 dollar, and 20 dollar denominations, most of which were in mint condition. Additionally, the
loot was never circulated, and many of them are worth millions of dollars. The 20 dollar coins,
known as Double Eagles, are especially precious, and many are the finest known specimens ever
unearthed. How did the Saddle Ridge Hoard get buried and forgotten in Northern California?
The best guess is that they were lifted from the U.S. Mint, but this has never been verified, and
until the government can claim their cash back, the Saddle Ridge Hoard remains in private hands.
Number 8: Cuerdale Hoard
The Cuerdale Hoard was discovered by mistake back in 1840 when workers on the River Ribble
embankment in Preston, England, found a curious lead box buried in the bank.
Inside was a huge Viking hoard of 8,600 individual treasures, each one worth
hundreds of times its weight in gold. The box was jammed full of silver ingots,
coins, and jewelry dating back to some of the earliest England Viking settlements known to man.
Tracing the treasure, scholars deduced that the giant hoard was hidden between 903 and 910, which
coincides perfectly with the time the Vikings were banished from Dublin. In a bizarre twist,
the River Ribble is home to some interesting folklore that predates the find, specifically
that if you look upriver, you will come across the biggest treasure in all of England. Whether
Viking lore fused with local legend to create the story, or if it was just a lucky guess,
we might never know. Today, the fabulous treasure is displayed at the British Museum.
Number 7: Le Cattilon II Hoard
When Englishmen Reg Mead and Richard Miles learned that some gold coins were spotted in
a field nearby, they went out to investigate and unearthed the most significant hoard of jewelry
and Celtic coins that’s been discovered to this day. The Le Cattilon II Hoard, a
massive stash of 68,000 coins and jewelry, including golden neck torcs and beads.
The loot was traced back to the Coriosolitae tribe, a band of French Celts who lived in
the area. Although we can only speculate, the French Celts must have fled in a hurry, most
likely from the Roman Empire, which was making their way across Great Britain at the time.
Number 6: Hoxne Hoard
A lost hammer was the catalyst for uncovering one of England’s most fantastic hoards,
the Hoxne Hoard. In 1992, Peter Whatling misplaced his hammer in a field and decided to call a friend
with a metal detector to help him sort it out. Instead of stumbling across his missing hammer,
Whatling and his friend Eric Lawes found a cache of Roman treasure buried right underneath their
feet. The Hoxne Hoard contained silver spoons, coins, and plenty of gold jewelry. To this day,
it’s the single largest hoard of Roman treasure ever discovered in the country.
The coins themselves comprise the largest collection of 5th and 4th century Roman coins
found anywhere on the planet. In total, the stash contained 14,272 silver coins, 569 gold coins,
and 24 bronze coins. There were also 98 silver spoons, multiple silver cooking vessels,
and 29 fantastic pieces of gold jewelry. In total, the hoard is valued at 4.81 million dollars,
the grand total of which was paid to Whatling and Lawes. As for the hoard itself, you can check it
out at the British Museum in London, England, complete with Whatling’s lost and found hammer!
Number 5: Staffordshire Hoard
In 2009, a treasure hunter named Terry Herbert struck literal gold, as well as silver and
precious gems, when he got permission to dig in a freshly plowed field in Staffordshire,
England. In one short week, Herbert pulled out 3,500 incredible objects,
today known as the Staffordshire Hoard. The hoard contained an amazing 11 pounds of pure gold
and 3 pounds of gemstones and silver. All of the contents of the hoard were military items, making
it fairly unique. The hoard’s contents were most likely forged between the 6th and 7th centuries
when the land was known as the kingdom of Mercia. Historians speculate that the hoard was stashed
for safekeeping during a Viking invasion. Today, it’s on display at the Birmingham Museum and is
valued at nearly 4.5 million dollars. Number 4: The Sroda Treasure
Nobody can put a price tag on the
Sroda Treasure because we just keep finding more and more of it. It all started in 1985, during
a routine building demolition in Sroda Slaska, Poland. What started off as mundane quickly turned
amazing when the demolition crew discovered an old vase buried underneath the building’s foundation.
Inside were 3,000 silver coins from the 14th century, valued at 120 million dollars.
The contents of the vase were just the tip of the iceberg, as local crews discovered, because as
more buildings were knocked down, more of the rich stuff was uncovered. A fabulous gold dragon-headed
ring and crown were buried, as well as plenty more coins and smaller pieces of jewelry. While the
Sroda Treasure still carries a modest price tag, as far as treasures and hoards go, it’s still very
much an ongoing hunt, as nobody knows what else they will find under this modest Polish town.
Number 3: Bacterian Gold
In 1978, the Bacterian Gold treasure was found in Tillya Tepe, an archaeological site in northern
Afghanistan, and it remains one of the most incredible treasures ever discovered in recorded
history. The Bacterian Gold treasure is old, dating all the way back to the 1st century B.C.E.,
and it’s full of priceless gold from China, Greece, and India. The treasure’s total tally
is made up of 20,000 gold ornaments, precious and semi-precious gems,
and fantastic jewelry. Today, the Bacterian Gold treasure travels the world, inspiring
the globe with its unparalleled splendor. Since it’s so internationally well-traveled,
there’s a good chance that you can catch the rich stuff on display in a city near you.
Number 2: Panagyurishte Hoard
The Panagyurishte Hoard, also known as the Panagyurishte Treasure, was unearthed in 1949 by a
band of three brothers; Pavel, Petko, and Michail Deikov. The trio was simply looking for clay near
a factory in Panagyurishte, Bulgaria, when they stumbled across something that they were totally
not expecting. Considered to be one of the greatest treasures ever discovered in Europe,
the Panagyurishte Hoard is the stuff of your wildest dreams,
a collection of Thracian art and the best-known artifacts of that civilization. Although the
Thracians spread all across Bulgaria and other parts of Europe in antiquity, not much is known
about their culture. That’s precisely what makes the Panagyurishte Hoard so unique and
important. It’s a snapshot of a civilization that many people thought had vanished forever.
Number 1: Caesarea Sunken Treasure
The priceless Caesarea Sunken Treasure is one of the most fantastic hoards ever pulled from
the sea in all of history. In 2015, divers in Caesarea, Israel, came across a massive stash
of coins littered all over the ocean’s bottom. Overall, the treasure totaled 2,000 coins from the
10th and 12th centuries, but the real wow factor comes not from the coins themselves or the age,
but their mysterious value. The Caesarea Sunken Treasure isn’t the biggest hoard on our list,
nor is it the oldest, but it’s the hardest to pin down. Although historians could date the treasure,
they couldn’t put a monetary value on it. The coins are so much more precious than
literally any currency that exists today, so there’s nothing to compare them to. The divers
who found this magnificent hoard certainly swam straight into the history books, but initially,
they thought the coins were fake. The golden loot on the seafloor looked more like fake
pirate treasure than ancient bona fide gold to them. Luckily, they had the foresight to scoop
it all up, and now the world can marvel at these priceless ancient treasures.
Thanks for watching! Would you rather get your hands on the Saddle Ridge Hoard or a single,
priceless coin from the Caesarea Sunken Treasure? Let us know in the comments section below.