The Colmar Treasure or Colmar hoard is a hoard of precious objects buried by Jews of the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. From the accession of Otto I in 962 ...

at the time of the Black Death pogroms. The Treasure was found in 1863 in the wall of a house in the medieval ''rue des Juifs,'' in Colmar,

Alsace Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had ...

. It is believed that some of the items were sold by the discoverers before the full extent of the Treasure could be recorded. The treasures that survive are mostly in the collection of the

Musée de Cluny The Musée de Cluny ("Cluny Museum", ), also known as Musée national du Moyen Âge – Thermes et hôtel de Cluny ("National Museum of the Middle Ages – Cluny thermal baths and mansion"), is a museum of the Middle Ages in Paris, Fr ...

, with a couple of items in the

Unterlinden Museum The Unterlinden Museum (French: ''Musée Unterlinden'') is located in Colmar, in the Alsace region of France. The museum, housed in a 13th-century Dominican religious sisters' convent and a 1906 former public baths building, is home to the Isenhe ...

. It was fully published only in 1999, when exhibited in Colmar. The Treasure includes one of the few surviving examples of a Jewish marriage ring, with the bezel in the form of a small building instead of a precious stone, in accord with the requirement in Jewish law that wedding rings be made as one piece. The Treasure includes silver coins, silver table ware, and gold and silver jewelry including elaborate belt buckles and fifteen silver rings. In 2019 the Treasure was exhibited at

The Cloisters The Cloisters, also known as the Met Cloisters, is a museum in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, New York City. The museum, situated in Fort Tryon Park, specializes in European medieval art and architecture, with a fo ...

, part of New York's

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

References

{{reflist Treasure troves of Medieval Europe Culture in Alsace Treasure troves of France Medieval Jewish history History of Alsace Hoards of jewellery Jewish ceremonial art Colmar 14th-century artefacts

See also

References