No one could have foreseen that the fields of Saint-Aubin-des-Chaumes would be the starting point of an incredible curse of modern times.
One fine day in 1977, a couple was walking in a piece of countryside in the Nièvre, eight kilometers south of Vézelay.
The eye of Georges-André Colas is attracted by a suspicious roundness which is flush with the ground.
He bends down and picks up an antique coin.
Barely stirred, the earth gives him a second, a third.
Returning a few months later, armed with a metal detector, the former earthenware worker from Nevers found even better: 82 bronze statuettes and objects, as well as about 6,800 coins.
The exhumation of this spectacular Roman treasure is spread out, in the greatest discretion, over several days.
Almost fifty years later,
It was a few kilometers from Saint-Aubin-des-Chaumes, in the north of Nièvre, that the detectorist unearthed his treasure in 1977, without imagining that he had discovered a Gallo-Roman sanctuary.
Pierre Carreau/Wikimedia Commons
"It's a story of looting...
This article is for subscribers only.
You have 87% left to discover.
Cultivating your freedom is cultivating your curiosity.
Keep reading your article for €0.99 for the first month
I ENJOY IT
Already subscribed?
Login