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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;DonnaML, post: 4566083, member: 110350&quot;]This source is more specific:</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://www.about-antiques.com/collecting-ancient-coins/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.about-antiques.com/collecting-ancient-coins/" rel="nofollow">https://www.about-antiques.com/collecting-ancient-coins/</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Individual hoards can vary in size from a few coins to over 100,000 coins. The largest hoard ever found was discovered in 1366 at Tourves, fifty kilometres east of Marseilles in France, when children came across some coins that had fallen from a small hole. When they enlarged the hole with their hands coins proceeded to shower from the side of the bank ‘like a water fountain’. The shower continued for some time, and when the silver was collected twenty mules were required to carry the load. It has been estimated that the weight must have been about 2,400 kilograms. All were small obols of Massalia, each weighing about half a gram. The hoard consequently contained over four million coins, all of which were subsequently melted down into silver bullion.</p><p><br /></p><p>And this report has even more details:</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://www.mernick.org.uk/lnc/newsletter/V7_12.pdf" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.mernick.org.uk/lnc/newsletter/V7_12.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.mernick.org.uk/lnc/newsletter/V7_12.pdf</a></p><p><br /></p><p>NEWSLETTER</p><p>The Journal of the London Numismatic Club</p><p><br /></p><p>VOL. VII NOS.11-12</p><p>NOVEMBER 1987</p><p><br /></p><p>The following incident occurred about 9 am on Friday 12th June 1366 in the village of Tourves in the district of St Maximin and the Archdiocese of Aix on a certain public highway which runs between Tourves and Seysson. Three young children from the village approached and woke up a young shepherd who was asleep with his flock at the side of the road. As he turned to them the children saw behind him the earth vomiting forth silver coins from a small hole about the size of a small finger in the side of the road. Thinking the coins were PELHAUQUINS (i.e. lead money which they play with) they first filled their pockets and then their purses with them. The children stopped up the whole with their hands and a similar hole broke open in another part of the road close 40 by, and from this the coins flowed like water from a fountain and continued to do so so that according to the general consensus what had already appeared in the upper earth amounted to more than 20 mule loads. A certain woman came up after and seeing the coins shouted &quot;My share!&quot; &quot;My share!&quot; but as she bent down to seize them the coins suddenly disappeared and buried themselves whence they had come. Those remaining in the full pockets and purses of the children were inscribed thus (sketch in mss.) on one side a saracen&#039;s head, and on the other side thus (sketch in mss.) a cross with clear letters. They were of pure fine silver and could be said to be worth about 5d of the local money. These events caused many predictions to be made: they were evil rather than good so that God will make this future anew. Original in Archives des Bouche-du Rhone, B.4 (Viridis), Fo.9. In Provence a mule load was reckoned at 120 kilograms so 20 mule loads would be 2,400 kg. The coins in question were clearly obols struck by Phoenecian colonists in Marseilles weighing just over 0.5 gm so 20 mule loads would be about 42 million coins (! !) . Why did the coins suddenly vanish? Witchcraft was probably suspected but could this possibly be an exaggerated account of crystalline coins crumbling to powder when roughly handled? Not surprisingly this incident long remained part of the local folk lore mentioned by both Nostradamus and Eckhel among others. The full text of the document was first read to the Academie des Inscriptions at Belles-lettres on 20.5.1903 and subsequently published in the RN. (1) Blanchet also reproduced it in his Traite des monnaies gauloises (1905) p. 596, and in a subsequent article (2) associated the &quot;Pelhauquins&quot; with the lead tokens published from the Seine by Forgeais, and discussed the etymology of the word.</p><p><br /></p><p>***</p><p><br /></p><p>The arithmetic of the person who wrote the second article seems to be a bit off -- it should be 4.8 million coins, not 42 million coins![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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