Medieval crowns of Eastern European royalty hidden in cathedral wall since World War II finally recovered
A set of 16th-century royal burial regalia concealed in a niche under a staircase for nearly a century has been recovered from the Vilnius Cathedral in Lithuania. The gold crowns, rings and other accessories have been missing since 1939, when they were hidden at the start of World War II.
A team of experts found the objects on Dec. 16 while using an endoscopic camera to peer into holes, fissures and cavities in the walls of the cathedral's underground chambers. The discovery was announced at a press conference Monday (Jan. 6).
In an email to Live Science, Mykolas Sotincenka, coordinator of the Vilnius Archdiocese's communications, explained that the treasures were initially collected in 1931 after a flood damaged the cathedral's crypt, revealing the sarcophagi of three key 16th-century rulers in their burial finery.
The royal insignia — which had been made for funerary purposes and placed into the sarcophagi at the time of their burial — included several crowns, rings, chains, a scepter, an orb and coffin plaques that identified the rulers as Alexander Jagiellon, the Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland, and two of the wives of Sigismund II Augustus, who was also a Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland: Elisabeth of Austria (also known as Elizabeth Habsburg) and Barbara Radziwiłl.
