Construction workers discovered the coins in Wettin, Germany, a small town in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, just over 100 miles southwest of Berlin.
According to a translated statement by the state’s Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology, the 285 silver coins were probably buried in a bag that later disintegrated,
After the coins’ excavation, they were separated, logged and restored. The oldest piece in the stash dates back to 1499, per the statement, and the newest to 1652.
More than half of the coins are large silver pieces, like thalers—valuable silver coins minted by the Holy Roman Empire—and their foreign equivalents.
Most of the pieces originated in the surrounding region, like a handful of Schreckenberg groschen coins, which were mainly used in local markets.
But the collection also includes trading thalers minted in the Spanish Netherlands, an Italian scudo from 1630 and a tallero minted by
Cosimo II de’ Medici—the Grand Duke of Tuscany— in 1620, writes Live Science’s Jennifer Nalewicki.