Earlier this year, while digging his field, a Kentucky man stumbled upon the surprise of his life: more than 700 American Civil War coins.

The “Great Kentucky Treasure” includes hundreds of U.S. gold coins dated between 1840 and 1863, in addition to a few silver coins. “The craziest thing in the world: $1 gold, $20 gold, $10 gold all…” says the man who found the treasure, whose identity and exact location have not been revealed in a short video.

According to Numismatic Garanti A.S. GovMint, which approves coins (NGC) and sells coins, 95% of the hoard consists of gold dollars, $20 10 Liberty coins and eight $20 Liberty coins. The rarest is the 1863-P $20 1-ounce Liberty gold coin. Just one of these coins can fetch six figures at auction, and the Great Kentucky Hoard has 18 coins. The NGC’s website states that the $20 Liberty coin, which circulated from 1850 to 1907, was minted by the Treasury Department after gold was discovered in California. The $20 Liberty coins in the hoard are even rarer because they don’t have the inscription “In God We Trust” added in 1866 after the end of the Civil War.

What is potentially more important, however, is what the treasure can tell us about America’s history during an extraordinarily turbulent time.

Ryan McNutt, a conflict archaeologist at Georgia Southern University who heard but did not see the hoard, said: “Given the time zone and location in then-neutral Kentucky, it’s possible that this hoard was buried before the June-July 1863 raid of Confederate John Hunt Morgan.”

Many wealthy Kentuckians are said to have buried large sums of money to prevent the Confederates from stealing it. James Langstaff left a letter saying that he had buried $20,000 worth of coins on his property in Paducah, that William Pettit had buried $80,000 worth of gold coins near Lexington, and that Confederate soldiers allegedly quarantined for measles had stolen a bill of exchange and hid it in a cave in Cumberland Gap.

Given that the hoard of coins is federal currency, McNutt said this may be the result of agreements a Kentucky resident has made with the federal government — “agreements that would be wise to hide from a Confederate raiding team.” According to him, many Americans suffering from the Civil War “gain experience in hiding goods and valuables.”

According to McNutt, most artifact deposits found on private land are released or collected without consulting archaeologists. “As a conflict archaeologist, I am deeply sorry for the loss of this information,” he said. The treasures contain an incredible amount of information about the person who collected the items and give archaeologists a glimpse of it.

It is reported that such historical finds on private lands in the USA do not need to be reported to an archaeologist. But McNutt, who has developed close relationships with landowners, believes education and outreach are the keys to learning more about these rare coins.

“It’s entirely up to the landowner,” McNutt said, but failing to contact an archaeologist means “a snapshot of the past will be lost forever.”