Two European royal treasures were lost. Finding them rewrites history.

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:

• The 15^th-century Vilnius Treasure was hidden in Lithuania during World War II and recently rediscovered.
• The Środa Treasure from the 13^th century included a royal crown and was rediscovered in the 1980s.
• Both treasures tell the story of interconnected European history, royalty, and wealth stretching from Lithuania to Luxembourg.

Rediscovering hidden European royal treasure from centuries past has become almost commonplace over the past few decades, with two massive historical finds now headlining museum collections in Vilnius, Lithuania, and Wroclaw, Poland. The treasures highlight the historic links between Poland, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, and Luxembourg while offering up spectacular royal wealth dating as far back as the 13th century.

The Vilnius Treasure, a mix of funeral adornments for royals from the 15^th and 16^th centuries, is the most recent find to reenter the public eye. The modern story of the Vilnius Treasure started in 1931. A spring flood exposed royal crypts under the city’s cathedral, allowing for the discovery of the remains of three royals and the regalia buried with them. The treasure included three funeral crowns, a scepter, an orb, jewelry, and personal items buried with the rulers of the Lithuanian-Polish Jagiellonian dynasty: King Alexander Jagiellon and the queens Elizabeth of Austria and Barbara Radziwill.

With World War II approaching, the treasure was hidden. While pieces of the Vilnius Cathedral treasury were rediscovered in 1985, the royal insignia remained lost. That all changed in 2024 with the rediscovery of the treasure linked to the royals. That funerary regalia has now gone on display at the Vilnius Church Heritage Museum.

“For decades, these artifacts were thought to be lost forever,” said Andrzej Betlej, director of the Wawel Royal Castle in Krakow, Poland, according to the museum. “Their rediscovery is a symbolic restoration of the memory of one of the most important periods in the history of Poland and Lithuania.”

Hope was nearly gone that the treasure would resurface. “Most of Poland’s regalia were lost at the end of the 18^th century, making this discovery internationally significant,” Betlej said. “When news of Vilnius’ insignia came out, it was received in Poland with genuine excitement. I immediately realized that we were witnessing a historic moment.”

The treasures were found in 2024 wrapped in newspaper. They were in a fragile state after decades in a humid environment, but archaeologists were able to restore the items and make them ready for public display. “Personal royal regalia created for a specific ruler are exceptionally rare,” said Giedre Mickunaite, curator of the exhibit. “As opposed to burial crowns, most coronation crowns were used for generations. There were never many of them to begin with, and over the centuries most were melted down, remade, or simply lost. The artifacts’ rediscovery brings back not only symbols of the long tradition of Lithuanian statehood, they also remind us of the shared dynastic history that shaped Central and Eastern Europe for centuries.”

The museum calls the artifacts exceptional examples of early Renaissance goldsmithing, particularly a crown for Elizabeth of Austria, a gold chain found on Barbara Radziwell, and the bright gemstones used for the rings of both queens.

A medallion for Elizabeth of Austria includes elements never seen in other objects. Using a unique 10-ducat coin minted in 1533, the medallion features portraits of Sigismund the Old and Sigismund II Augustus. The collection of gems on the medallion shows sophisticated craftsmanship of hollowed garnets to imitate rubies and crystal doublets fused with a red backing to create the appearance of gemstones.

The find included queens’ rings made of gold with gemstones, including diamonds, rubies, and emeralds.

In Środa, a different royal treasure was lost for even longer than the Vilnius Treasure was. During the late 1980s, the Środa Treasure was rediscovered over the span of a few years. First, crews working on a telephone exchange structure located a vase with coins minted in Prague, but it was only three years later that another nearby construction project revealed gold and silver florin coins. Later, in-depth excavations unearthed a treasure dating to the late 13^th and early 14^th centuries that included coins, jewelry, and a royal crown.

Experts believe the Środa Treasure originated from the Crown Treasury of the House of Luxembourg in Prague. Around 1348, Charles IV, who was then King of Bohemia, pawned the items in Środa as collateral to a Jewish banker named Muscho to fund his campaign for the title King of the Romans, according to the National Museum in Wrocław. At the time, Środa was part of the Duchy of Wrocław within the Crown of Bohemia, and Charles’s Luxembourg dynasty connected the Czech lands, Silesia, and much of Central Europe under one ruling house.

The treasure was hidden by the bankers in Środa, likely during the mid-14th century, but never retrieved.

The gold crown that probably belonged to a Czech queen is the most valuable piece among the findings. Originally commissioned for a wedding—evidenced by a ring motif—it may have last adorned Blanche of Valois, the first wife of Charles IV of Luxembourg. The early-14th-century crown is the only surviving object of its kind.

The treasure includes gold pendants from the late 12th to early 13th centuries, a buckle with a bird figurine, gold rings, and plenty of gold and silver coins. The most valuable piece of jewelry is a round clasp likely used to fasten ceremonial cloaks of courtiers or a coronation robe. It features a raised depiction of an imperial eagle and includes an inner ring of garnets and emeralds, with an outer ring of sapphire and pearls bordered by another ring of emeralds and garnets.

The two museums hope these treasures of old will tell their stories anew.