Restorers at a famous Gothic church in Germany have discovered a "huge fortune" that was hidden in the leg of a statue nearly 400 years ago. The treasure — four bags of coins from the 1600s — was likely concealed during the Thirty Years' War, when Swedish soldiers frequently plundered the region.
The discovery is an "incredible story," Ulf Dräger, curator and head of department at the State Coin Cabinet of Saxony-Anhalt in Germany, told Live Science in an email. The restorers, who made the find in May 2022 but didn't announce it until November 2024, uncovered the coins at St. Andrew's Church, a Gothic church in Eisleben, a town in the east-central state of Saxony-Anhalt. This church is where Martin Luther, the Protestant Reformer who wrote the "Ninety-five Theses" against corruption in the Roman Catholic Church, delivered his last four sermons in 1546.
