Late Hellenistic and Early Imperial silver treasure, found
by chance in 1868 by soldiers setting up a rifle-range
0.5 km SE of Hildesheim at the foot of the Galgenberg.
The treasure consists exclusively of silver tableware,
mostly dishes and drinking vessels. These objects had
been packed into a pit (ca. 1.2 x 0.9 m at the top and
ca. 2.5 m deep), the smaller vessels hidden inside the
larger ones. Later investigations have made almost certain that this was not a grave hoard but hidden treasure.
There is nothing now to be seen at this place, which
lies ca. 250 km as the crow flies from the Roman Rhine
border, in a district of Germania Libera which remained
outside Roman domination except during the Roman offensive war E of the Rhine (11 B.C.-A.D. 16). Considering
the geographical location of the find spot, it is tempting
to connect the treasure with these offensive wars and to
view it as originally the property either of P. Quinctilius
Varus, killed in A.D. 9, or of Germanicus, who campaigned there in A.D. 14-16. More recent investigations
have shown, however, that the latest pieces of the treasure were produced ca. mid 1st c. A.D. Concerning the
assembling of the various pieces of the treasure and the
occasion for their burial, nothing is known. The treasure
is now in the Staatliche Museen, Stiftung Preussischer
Kulturbesitz, in West Berlin.
E. Pernice & F. Winter, Der Hildesheimer Silberfund
; W. John, “P. Quinctilius
Varus, VI: Der Hildesheimer Silberfund,” RE
(1963) 965ff; D. E. Strong, Greek and Roman Gold and
(1966); U. Gehrig, Hildesheimer Silberfund
(1967) (= Bilderhefte der Staatlichen Museen Berlin,
; K. Lindemann, Der Hildesheimer Silberfund—Varus
(1967); R. Nierhaus, “Der Silberschatz
von Hildesheim. Seine Zusammensetzung und der Zeitpunkt seiner Vergrabung,” Die Kunde
NF 20 (1969).