A Hungarian soldier was found hanged beside an empty pit in 1980, and the Roman silver he is believed to have dug up sold for €43 million

The Sevso Treasure is 14 large Roman silver vessels of the 4th or 5th century. One plate is inscribed to a man named Sevso. In December 1980 József Sümegh, 24, was found hanged in a wine cellar near Polgárdi as his military service ended. He collected antiquities and was said to have found a large silver treasure. The inquiry called it suicide. In 1984 the Marquess of Northampton bought the silver through a private Sotheby's sale for £14 million. The Getty Museum declined to buy ten pieces after their Lebanese export licences were found to be forged. In 1990 Sotheby's offered the hoard in New York. Lebanon sued, then Yugoslavia, Croatia and Hungary. Lebanon withdrew on the eve of trial. In 1993, after a seven-week trial, the New York court found that neither Hungary nor Croatia had proved the silver was found in its territory. The ruling was affirmed in 1994. The silver could not be sold. Northampton sued his solicitors and settled for £24 million. After 1990 Hungarian prosecutors reopened Sümegh's death as a murder. Investigators found a filled-in pit in the cellar that fits the copper cauldron that held the silver. In 2014 Hungary paid €15 million for seven pieces, and in 2017 €28 million for the other seven. Police suspended the murder investigation in August 2018. The 14 pieces are in the Hungarian National Museum, Budapest.