As a child I was walking down the street and kicked something by chance that sounded metallic. 150 year old coin, irrc. Just there on the asphalt next to the sidewalk.
Unfortunately bronze, with trimmed edges, common mint and worth very little. But if you tell me someone just stumbles onto and old coin in the street just lime that, I pretty much believe it.
When I was a teenager I was working at McDonalds and someone came in and paid for a meal using old US Silver Certificate bills. Some people just are careless and don't notice old or unusual things.
I knew vaguely that Troy had many layers of settlement, but I didn't realize that Troy had an extensive life in antiquity that extended into the classical Greek age (Post-Bronze Age) and Early Roman Age. It's funny to think of Roman and Greek Tourists visiting Troy VIII in 300 BC.
When I visited Troy, the museum's trojan horse replica said "Under Construction". Apparently it had been that way for months and months, which was pretty funny considering the original took only 3 days.
"The final layers (Troy VIII–IX) were Greek and Roman cities which served as tourist attractions and religious centers because of their link to mythic tradition."
no, but in first century bc and after that the roman world was connected enough that rich young romans were doing their version of the grand tour. Cesar managed to be kidnapped by pirates doing something like that, if I remember it correctly.
I read something about the Sphinx in Egypt suggesting that modern excavations came to the conclusion that at least one Ancient Egyptian dynasty probably excavated it trying to figure out the history of it as well
No information about the kid who found it? Did he get some reward for finding it? Does it come from some archeological site around there or some collector just lost it there?
""After we understood where it came from, I had the task of figuring out where this coin was found exactly. Fortunately, the boy was very precise and showed me exactly where he found it on a map. Then we went into our findings registration and found that this agricultural site was actually a well-known place," Henker explained.
Berlin'sMuseum for Pre- and Early History has been systematically conducting surveys on empty land in Berlin since the 1950s to determine where possible excavation sites might be.
In this particular spot, explains Henker, the upper layers of the soil were surveyed in the 1950s and 70s and again later. "Every time, they discovered a few distinct finds that made them say 'ok, there's probably more in the ground here'."
Over the years, fragments of ceramics, Slavonic-era knives and a bronze button have been unearthed on the site, as well as burnt human bones, leading researchers to conclude that this are was used as a burial ground dating as far back as the early Iron Age — and has been in use throughout the centuries."
"At first, archaeologists wondered if the coin was a “modern loss”—perhaps dropped by a collector in recent years. However, a professional excavation of the discovery site suggests a much deeper connection.
The field was found to be a multi-layered historical site, containing Bronze Age and Iron Age burial remains, Roman-era artifacts, and even a medieval Slavic knife fitting. This “archaeological context” suggests the coin likely arrived in the region centuries ago, rather than falling out of someone’s pocket last week."
If I get that right, the student somehow managed to find the coin in a field, and after archaeologists started digging and found a whole historical site.
Since the location is a field, I imagine the coin had come to the surface when the farmer was plowing the field, or something like that. Still, why was the student walking in a field? Germans are known for going on walks, but why in a field? Was he or she in the field with the express purpose of trying to find something interesting, maybe even using a metal detector? Or was it a purely accidental find?
Back in my day, if you uncovered some priceless historical artifact, the least the newspaper could do is print your friggin' name in the article. Did some nearby archaeology professor already swindle the kid out of the coin and call dibs or something?
There's a link in the blog to another source saying he found it in a field that turned out to be an archeological site. A modern collector didn't lose it.
Yeah I really want more information than "on a walk". Really? No digging whatsoever involved? Did they walk past an eroding riverbank or something? I'm so curious.
Can't even imagine what it's like to live in Europe. Just casually going on a walk and finding a coin that is over 2 millennia old. Just another Tuesday.
Yeah the wild thing about the southwest is the open-air museum aspect of it, not the layers on layers. For petroglyphs, the southwest has so many that date to the high middles ages (~1100 AD) you can stumble on them by accident as a hiker. AFAIK the oldest in the area are still thought to be these ones[0], about 9000 years ago. (Always controversial to date rocks I guess, but the oldest North American mummy should be easier and is about the same.[1])
The southwest has plenty of layers on layers. Tucson is built on a Spanish fort, which is built on native villages on top of yet older native villages going back almost 4,000 years, as one example.
For another example, most neighborhoods in eastern phoenix are built on top of old Hohokam villages, adjoining older basketmaker sites. The canals throughout the city often follow the old Hohokam canals. Fun fact, the Intel Chandler campus is on top of old hohokam suburbs of Pueblo de los muertos, which is buried under the modern suburbs.
The Puebloan culture in the southwest during that time was basically a full fledged civilization. It's insane how underresearched such a culture is despite having built megastructures like within the Grand Chaco Canyon
Nope. Which is what makes it so difficult. Additionally, adjacent nations like the Navajo, Apache, and others are very tight lipped about their extremely robust ancestral and oral history because of bad experiences along with taboos.
It felt like a mix of rightful wariness due to untrustworthy opportunistic anthropologists from the 19th and 20th century along with taboos that developed due to some sort of collapse.
Growing up as a kid, we used to find old wagon wheels and arrow heads frequently. There used to be an old fort not far from where my parent's house was located. A limestone creek ran on the back part of their property and defined the property line. We'd find all sorts of artifacts up and down this creek. I even came across a rock with an circular hole that was obviously bored into it and charring around the hole. I used to have some interesting show-n-tells. This was in the 80s.
Old trade beads can sometimes be found, old stashes and caches. Pony beads, seed beads, and others.
They were traded/used as "money". The Hudson's Bay Company brought millions of them to this continent.
Downtown Los Angeles has a pretty famous park and museum with fossils of preserved megafauna that have been extinct for millennia still regularly found just chilling in a bubbling lake of oil. I even worked there 25 years ago.
That, or German soldiers and engineers and adventurers passing by in the 19th and early 20th century bringing home "a souvenir". It would be in character since the large sections of ancient Pergamon were also lifted and shifted to Berlin as well.
> Already in the 5th century BC, Herodotus reports about the ‘Hyperboreans’ (Folks from above the North Wind), and how they regularly visited the island of Delos
Unfortunately bronze, with trimmed edges, common mint and worth very little. But if you tell me someone just stumbles onto and old coin in the street just lime that, I pretty much believe it.
Only time I ever got rare money was a buffalo / Indian head nickel as change in a cafe very recently, not a valuable form though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy
Edit: this was also mentioned in the article
So "yes", then.
Heck, Inuit had Chinese bronze artifacts [0] well before European contact (basically 4,000 miles).
[0] - https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/archive/releases/2016/Q2/old...
Link should be updated to this.
""After we understood where it came from, I had the task of figuring out where this coin was found exactly. Fortunately, the boy was very precise and showed me exactly where he found it on a map. Then we went into our findings registration and found that this agricultural site was actually a well-known place," Henker explained.
Berlin'sMuseum for Pre- and Early History has been systematically conducting surveys on empty land in Berlin since the 1950s to determine where possible excavation sites might be.
In this particular spot, explains Henker, the upper layers of the soil were surveyed in the 1950s and 70s and again later. "Every time, they discovered a few distinct finds that made them say 'ok, there's probably more in the ground here'."
Over the years, fragments of ceramics, Slavonic-era knives and a bronze button have been unearthed on the site, as well as burnt human bones, leading researchers to conclude that this are was used as a burial ground dating as far back as the early Iron Age — and has been in use throughout the centuries."
The field was found to be a multi-layered historical site, containing Bronze Age and Iron Age burial remains, Roman-era artifacts, and even a medieval Slavic knife fitting. This “archaeological context” suggests the coin likely arrived in the region centuries ago, rather than falling out of someone’s pocket last week."
If I get that right, the student somehow managed to find the coin in a field, and after archaeologists started digging and found a whole historical site.
Since the location is a field, I imagine the coin had come to the surface when the farmer was plowing the field, or something like that. Still, why was the student walking in a field? Germans are known for going on walks, but why in a field? Was he or she in the field with the express purpose of trying to find something interesting, maybe even using a metal detector? Or was it a purely accidental find?
https://greekreporter.com/2026/04/16/ancient-greek-coin-troy...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnemucca_Lake [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_Cave_mummy#Dating
For another example, most neighborhoods in eastern phoenix are built on top of old Hohokam villages, adjoining older basketmaker sites. The canals throughout the city often follow the old Hohokam canals. Fun fact, the Intel Chandler campus is on top of old hohokam suburbs of Pueblo de los muertos, which is buried under the modern suburbs.
It felt like a mix of rightful wariness due to untrustworthy opportunistic anthropologists from the 19th and 20th century along with taboos that developed due to some sort of collapse.
https://surface.syr.edu/beads/vol2/iss1/6/
Heh, some things never change.