Villena's treasure is stolen, one of the most valuable of the Bronze Age
The thieves took it at dawn from the Archaeological Museum of Villena, in the Alt Vinalopó
BarcelonaThis morning, the treasure of Villena, one of the most valuable Bronze Age collections in Europe, was stolen from the Archaeological Museum of Villena (Alt Vinalopó). The Civil Guard and the Judicial Police are already investigating the theft, as confirmed by sources from the Alicante municipality to the Efe agency. The museum's alarm sounded at 5:20 AM, according to the same sources. By 5:24 AM, the theft had already been consummated and no one was in the museum. Previously, at 5:16 AM, the alarm at the Villena sports complex had gone off, likely to divert police attention. Regarding how the thieves (or thief) gained access, municipal sources consulted by Europa Press rule out entry through the windows, as they are armored.
The treasure of Villena is a collection of goldsmithing dated around 1000 BC, primarily composed of gold pieces. Among others, it includes 11 bowls, 28 bracelets, and three bottles; it also consists of three silver bottles, two mixed pieces of amber and gold, another of iron and gold, and a final iron bracelet. According to the museum's website, it is considered the most important collection of golden tableware from the Bronze Age, alongside the treasures from the royal tombs of Mycenae, Greece.
The archaeologist José María Soler and his collaborators discovered it in 1963 inside a vessel hidden in the dry riverbed of a ravine in the municipality of Villena, a town of about 35,000 inhabitants located in the Alt Vinalopó region, in the northern interior of the province of Alicante. In October 1963, the first piece was discovered, a bracelet that could not be identified as jewelry at the time. Among the material deposited for a construction project on Ferriz street, this bracelet was seen, although initially, they thought it might be a truck engine part.
The construction site manager, Ángel Tomás, left it on display waiting for someone to claim it, mistaking it for a truck bearing, but fortune would have it end up in the hands of local jeweler Carlos Miguel Esquembre, who turned to the expert eye of the director of the Municipal Archaeological Museum, José María Soler. This allowed for the initiation of excavations in the ravine, which after several days, on December 1st, yielded the most important archaeological find of the Bronze Age in all of Europe: a collection of 59 pieces of gold, silver, iron, and amber weighing almost 10 kilograms.