Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin

Posted by speckx 5 hours ago

Counter155Comment69OpenOriginal

Comments

Comment by hecturchi 3 hours ago

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.

Comment by SoftTalker 3 hours ago

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.

Comment by eszed 1 hour ago

I've had that happen a couple times, too. The first time I was super excited, and looked up the collectable price, and it was like $8 for a (pristine) $5 bill. I think I kept it for a few days to show to people, and then spent it. I inherited a couple from my dad last year, and the collectors' price hadn't changed, so I did the same thing. Still cool, though. I hope whatever cashier received them from me got a similar thrill.

Comment by traderj0e 2 hours ago

Wow. I like how those look almost like modern bills except for a cool seal and text saying it's redeemable for silver, subtle flex.

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.

Comment by bombcar 3 hours ago

I used to see those once or twice a year, now it's been a decade since I've seen even a $2 in the wild.

Comment by 2 hours ago

Comment by genxy 1 hour ago

You can get new $2 from your bank

Comment by eszed 1 hour ago

And they're still a pain to spend, because too many people refuse to believe they're real money. Or else don't want to take them because there isn't a slot in their cash drawer. I inherited a couple of bundles from my dad last year (he made $2 bills his "thing", much like Woz, because he enjoyed arguing with cashiers), and exchanged them all at the bank for "real money".

Comment by bombcar 55 minutes ago

I know and do; it's a question if I get one in change or otherwise.

(IIRC some businesses used to give change in $2 to show their "influence" on the area.)

Comment by dhosek 1 hour ago

I took my kids to one of those gaming centers (skee ball, claw machines, etc.) and stumbled across a 19th century 50-cent piece in the change machine. It apparently is worth about $150 last time I checked.

Comment by 1 hour ago

Comment by nickpinkston 30 minutes ago

Unsure if this is the connection, but the guy who discovered Troy in the late 1800's (Heinrich Schliemann) actually brought Troy artifacts to a Berlin museum, which someone with more knowledge of Berlin than me may be able to draw more connections from.

Per his Wikipedia:

"In 1874 Schliemann published Troy and Its Remains. Schliemann at first offered his collections, which included Priam's Gold, to the Greek government, then the French, and finally the Russians. In 1881, his collections ended up in Berlin, housed first in the Ethnographic Museum, and then the Museum for Pre- and Early History, until the start of WWII.

In 1939, all exhibits were packed and stored in the museum basement, then moved to the Prussian State Bank vault in January 1941. In 1941, the treasure was moved to the Flakturm located at the Berlin Zoological Garden, called the Zoo Tower. Dr. Wilhelm Unverzagt protected the three crates containing the Trojan gold when the Battle of Berlin commenced, right up until SMERSH forces took control of the tower on 1 May.

On 26 May 1945, Soviet forces, led by Lt. Gen. Nikolai Antipenko, Andre Konstantinov, deputy head of the Arts Committee, Viktor Lazarev, and Serafim Druzhinin, took the three crates away on trucks. The crates were then flown to Moscow on 30 June 1945, and taken to the Pushkin Museum ten days later. In 1994, the museum admitted the collection was in their possession."

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Schliemann

Comment by lordleft 5 hours ago

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.

Comment by lamasery 5 hours ago

I wonder if there were street vendors selling little replicas of the wooden horse.

Comment by kirubakaran 3 hours ago

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.

Comment by schoen 20 minutes ago

I had the same problem during my visit. It seems we can't build bridges, railroads, or Trojan horses nearly as fast as earlier generations could.

Comment by bombcar 3 hours ago

"Be careful building that thing! It might go off!"

Comment by redsocksfan45 2 hours ago

[dead]

Comment by exitb 4 hours ago

Was there anything resembling tourism in 300 BC?

Comment by arethuza 4 hours ago

"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."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy

Comment by riffraff 1 hour ago

not only there was, people were still people and we have roman and greek graffiti on monuments ("X was here" and similar).

Comment by detourdog 4 hours ago

There were “pilgrimages”, trade, and extended families. Joseph traveled with his brothers to Egypt long before 300 BC

Comment by thehours 4 hours ago

Alexander the Great visited it in 334 BC: https://greekreporter.com/2025/09/07/alexander-the-great-vis...

Edit: this was also mentioned in the article

Comment by 2 hours ago

Comment by olalonde 3 hours ago

That's covered in the article.

Comment by gostsamo 4 hours ago

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.

Comment by Gormo 1 hour ago

> 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.

So "yes", then.

Comment by 4 hours ago

Comment by sidewndr46 2 hours ago

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

Comment by Tuna-Fish 20 minutes ago

The oldest written text that definitely refers to it is the Dream Stele by Thutmose IV, which describes him having it dug free of sand. The monument was more than a thousand years old at that point.

Young kings showing their piety by restoring old monuments was useful royal propaganda. This wasn't even the last time that the Sphinx was restored.

Comment by alephnerd 4 hours ago

Don't underestimate ancient globalization.

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...

Comment by cachius 3 hours ago

Official German press statment: https://www.berlin.de/landesdenkmalamt/aktivitaeten/presse/2...

Comment by jb1991 27 minutes ago

I've always wondered how something so old and in one place so long is just sitting on top of the soil so easily found. How did it go for such a long time not noticed?

Comment by jjk166 24 minutes ago

Earth erodes, fields are plowed, roots disturb the soil; if it's sitting on the surface now, it almost certainly was buried not long ago.

It's the same reason paleontologists can go back to the same places every year and find new fossils, or farmers keep having to remove stones from their fields.

Comment by brailsafe 2 hours ago

This article https://www.dw.com/en/teen-discovers-first-ancient-greek-art... posted by roelschroeven is much more informative than this AI slop.

Link should be updated to this.

Comment by BobbyTables2 2 hours ago

Whoever dropped that coin is going to be very upset!

Comment by jb1991 1 hour ago

That's addressed in the article: unlikely to be a collector who lost the coin. The coin was just one of many artifacts discovered in that area over the last 75 years.

Comment by rtkrni 4 hours ago

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?

Comment by roelschroeven 3 hours ago

I found some more information in this other article: https://www.dw.com/en/teen-discovers-first-ancient-greek-art...

""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."

Comment by FlyingSnake 23 minutes ago

Spandau occupies a commanding position on the wide confluence of Spree and Havel river. It is part of the wider river networks and one can easily navigate to Elbe and Danube. The coin might have ended up here via trade.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/aFfBzWNgnMiCvdHf6

Comment by roelschroeven 4 hours ago

"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?

Comment by zadikian 4 hours ago

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.

https://greekreporter.com/2026/04/16/ancient-greek-coin-troy...

Comment by AdmiralAsshat 3 hours ago

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?

Comment by RyanOD 4 hours ago

Does he get the coin back after the museum is done showing it?

Comment by Tuna-Fish 8 minutes ago

"Finders keepers" is a legal principle only common in common law countries. In most of the world, in no way could you be construed to own something just because you found it in the ground.

In most civil law countries, everything always has a legal owner (usually reverting to the state when no other legal owner can be found), and if you just "find" something and take it, you have committed theft. In Germany, the antiquities law is clear that anything of significant historical value belongs to the state, with a monetary reward possible for the finder in some situations (and finding something and not reporting it is a crime). If an old coin is deemed to not be historically significant, it probably belongs to the landowner.

Comment by adriand 4 hours ago

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.

Comment by cammasmith 4 hours ago

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.

Comment by SoftTalker 4 hours ago

You can walk around the USA and find flint arrowheads ... not sure the Native Americans used coins as such.

Comment by robot-wrangler 3 hours ago

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])

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnemucca_Lake [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_Cave_mummy#Dating

Comment by AlotOfReading 3 hours ago

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.

Comment by alephnerd 3 hours ago

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

Comment by sidewndr46 2 hours ago

did they leave behind significant amounts of writing?

Comment by alephnerd 2 hours ago

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.

Comment by dhosek 1 hour ago

I grew up in the bed of a drained lake (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Portage#:~:text=this%2...), so there were no native American artifacts to be found. The best we could do were the foundations of some homes that had been on sanitary district land but then torn down with the area reverting to forest (sadly, this forested area which was open to exploration when I was a kid has since been fenced off).

Comment by dylan604 2 hours ago

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.

Comment by louky 2 hours ago

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.

https://surface.syr.edu/beads/vol2/iss1/6/

Comment by tiagod 3 hours ago

I feel the same way about the US. Can't imagine the vast wilderness you still have. I've never been somewhere truly wild and untouched by man.

Comment by danans 1 hour ago

> truly wild and untouched by man.

In the US you can find truly wild places, but it is pretty hard to find places untouched by man. Humans have been here for at least 15000 years, and from the very beginning were having huge impacts on the ecology.

Comment by nonameiguess 3 hours ago

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.

Comment by traderj0e 2 hours ago

La Brea tarpits, the essential LA elementary school field trip

Comment by cardiffspaceman 1 hour ago

And well known to fans of Dr Demento. This is the Wikipedia about “Hancock Park” the city park that contains the tar pits and museum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hancock_Park

There is also a district of the city that contains NIMBYs and other fossils, by a similar name.

Comment by dhosek 59 minutes ago

Pico and Sepulveda! Pico and Sepulveda!

Comment by unsignedchar 53 minutes ago

the museum is small but excellent; it has a wall covered just in Dire Wolf skulls found there

Comment by ranger_danger 3 hours ago

What's it called?

Comment by Clamchop 2 hours ago

La Brea tarpits

Comment by mc32 3 hours ago

Did Schliemann pass through Berlin, maybe?

Comment by moezd 1 hour 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.

Comment by danans 3 hours ago

> 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

Heh, some things never change.

Comment by brcmthrowaway 3 hours ago

Germany was populated in antiquity?

Comment by traderj0e 2 hours ago

Romans referred to the region where they came into contact with villages across the Rhine as "Germania."

Comment by tremon 2 hours ago

Germany was only populated in olden times. The present name for (most of) the region is Deutschland.

Comment by QuercusMax 2 hours ago

Is this a joke?

Comment by lukan 1 hour ago

Probably just ignorance, but there actually was a gap in that time in some areas in germany. Close to my hometown are the remains of an old ancient fortress - that was build by mostly unknown people and abandoned at 400 b.c. and only 1000 years later there were settlements again. A bit rougher area, though.

The flat area of Berlin on the other hand, had human settlement since 60 000 years.

Comment by QuercusMax 27 minutes ago

I don't think anyone requires every hectare to have been developed in order to consider an area inhabited. Neanderthals are named after the Neander valley (Thal) near Dusseldorf, so I think we can definitely say yes, that humans have lived in Germany since long before antiquity.