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Treasure on a Swine Farm

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Category: Articles and Publications

Created on Saturday, 18 May 2013 14:55

From the early morning somehow everything went wrong. After a long work week we did not want to get up, the bag with device seemed unusually heavy and the car somehow did not start. Global road repairs along the way, detours, traffic police posts, very thick fog and drizzling rain made the focus on the road very serious.

Precisely because of this fog, a dense veil hid all the landmarks, we passed without noticing the main landmark - the dilapidated stone bridge across the, now dried up little river with a funny name Pork. Necessary to us little farm once stood on the shore of the lake, now turned into a valley surrounded by high hills monumental. These mountains cut by deep valleys and highly proliferating nearby village completely confused the whole picture.

Hard climb to one of these hills to Explore was useless - the visibility was no more than 150 meters, so more distant objects seemed like a grazing in the fog a herd of mammoths.

Another driving in circles in the valley, was also unsuccessful – we were confused by the results of extensive excavations conducted once by valiant Soviet meliorators. Although yesterday evening, paving the route on the map, everything seemed so easy! As they say, it was smooth on paper, but they forgot about the ravines.

An hour later, nevertheless we found a second target - a high mound on the plowed field. Visual search in the district resulted in an unexpected find, a quite extensive Bronze Age settlement with a characteristic for them stucco molding of poor quality. There are mass of such settlements in the areas, and if we would look for them specifically, we can find up to 5 units per day. Only they always had problems with metal.

Only when the fog began to gradually dissipate, it all became clear – the necessary to us mound-landmark was 200m from us , and this 5-meter mound with the settlement, is not marked on the map at all (low bow to the Soviet military surveyors). It turns out that those few hours, we wound up in a spiral circles around the place that we were looking for!

After that, everything went smoothly - 200 m walking, 100 m driving than 30 m walk again, the machine and shovel. Farm by Itself disappointed us at first - almost all overgrown with bushes of many years, only a few isolated houses were plowed and were plowed pretty bad.
Fog finally lifted, the sun came out. Flies started flying and lots spider web. And this in December! Up to the dinner time the temperature rose to 17 C, without wind. And then findings came along...

Concerned natives from the nearby village came repeatedly during our search. We were also honored by the presence of the field owner himself, an old man. After listening to our story about looking for metal, he left in his old car. 

But here sounded an unusually beautiful and clear sound. Wow! A rouble of 1818, in a good condition (even George was clearly visible). Not bad. In 5 meters, the same signal again and again ruble, only this time of 1822, in the same state. Not bad at all. "Silver rush" stated.

Judging by the patina they laid stacked, but further there were no rubles. Most likely, rough plowing prevented from finding the rest. And maybe there were no more of them, but hope did not extinguish.

In total we found 31 coin (6 units of which were Silver) from the period of Alexander I to Nicholas II, not counting other small finds (vintage folding pocket knife with bone plates, musket round lead bullet with notches, beautiful silver plated copper ring with emptiness instead stone, baby copper ring with a heart, different buttons, etc.).

In the nearby village the lights in the windows start to go out one by one, the full moon had risen, and the search continued. 
We went home tired but happy, discussing the question - what will be the reaction of the owner of the field in the spring, when he sow the field and smooth, and we'll be featured with the device and a shovel in search of the rest of the treasure?

It was getting dark. The wind was blowing unusually warm from the estuary, but with a slight smell of winter. The search that started from the dinner time, on a once large half-plowed field, brought quite a bit-penny from the times of Alexander I in a nearly good state, pieces of sheet metal and other non-ferrous trash. Although pottery, fragments of old glass bottle and ash on the foundations that have dismantled the inhabitants of the surrounding villages for building materials, was enough.

It was decided to end the day on the hilly outskirts of the hamlet with no signs of plowing. For 10 minutes of searching was found uninteresting button, very shabby pectoral cross and three silver penny`s in a used condition. We reached the edge of the foundation of a house, standing on the outskirts of the rest. After 5 minutes the unit gave a signal off close to the brass. It turned out to be 5 silver cents of 1824. A meter on the way was found a 20 of 1820 Even a meter away from it there is another coin of 20 cents and followed her out of the same pit a 25 of 1827. We had to expand the hole deeper.

And then began the fact that in this case can be called a "silver fever"... Total found was 17 coins of 1815-1829. 5 of them were scattered on the surface for about one line from the basement to the main well (as if they had lost in a hurry on the way to the bookmark). The depth of the remaining coins in the hole was about bayonet spade. Potbelly residual material was found. The soil around the foundation was heavily mineralized - my device without a built-in auto tracking, became insane.

Immediately was born a hypothesis, that suddenly once the fire started, and collecting master in a hurry tried to put up a handful of money or a leaky cap and quickly bury them in the ground with hands or with a knife. After the fire, the whole neighborhood, most likely was covered with a layer of ash and the owner of the house could not find this location. In the future, he probably was not able to accurately find his stash. Maybe something happened to the master himself... About 70% of coins in the good state (in the words of a professional collector, who had seen a couple of pieces) close to the XF. On some remained thin burrs on edge, pressing and left still visible stamp glitter! The others worn very slightly. Remarkably, around the foundation and the surrounding area there was not a single copper coin (until the next exit near the base was found a small brass buckle with a lion's head). Most likely, the owner did not lose copper , he was gradually exchanging it to the money with the passing postman, carrying salary to someone. 
It was already quite dark, but I was still trying to find at least a couple of coins. But all good things must come to an end...

Source: http://ckit.ru

 

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