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

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...

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 Colmar (; ; or ) is a city and commune in the Haut-Rhin department and Alsace region of north-eastern France. The third-largest commune in Alsace (after Strasbourg and Mulhouse), it is the seat of the prefecture of the Haut-Rhin department ...

Alsace Alsace (, ; ) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in the Grand Est administrative region of northeastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine, next to Germany and Switzerland. In January 2021, it had a population of 1,9 ...

. 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 (), officially Musée de Cluny-Musée National du Moyen Âge (), is a museum of medieval art in Paris. It is located in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, bordered by square Samuel-Paty to the south, boulevard Saint-Michel to t ...

, with a couple of items in the Unterlinden Museum. 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, Manhattan, Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, New York City. The museum, situated in Fort Tryon Park, specializes in European medieval art ...

, part of New York's

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

References

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

See also

References