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.
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?
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.
> 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
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.
The oldest coin in my collection is an 1838 large cent, which my dad says he found as a kid in a crack in the sidewalk. He was born more than 100 years after that date.
I have a similar story, but I was playing on the beach. There was a mound right next to it and I would love to play there, and the mound had some funny stones.
One of them was square with something painted on it, I was fascinated by romans so I annoyed my parents with "I found a mosaic!" and took it with me.
Turns out, years later, they excavated a roman villa there.
Funnily enough, the same beach has roman villas, dinosaur prints, austro-hungarian tunnels and yugoslavian bunkers. Quite a lot of history in one pretty beach.
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."
Berlin has dozens of museums with classical artefacts, notably the Pergamon. It is highly likely that it was looted by the Red Army or even a German during the war.
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?
Most probably the artifact was transferred there in modern times. Once I had found a 2nf century AD Roman coin while playing outside, worth about 200E. If they were transfered in their corresponding time, they would be burried many metres beneath earth surface.
I was riding my bike through the streets of Vienna one time, thoroughly enjoying the weather (springtime is glorious in Austria), and suddenly I got hit on the head by some object.. really hurt, so I slammed on the brakes, checked for blood, found a lump .. and then scanned around for the rock that hit me, thinking it’d ricocheted off a car or something .. turns out, it was a NOSE! Fallen off a statute on the top of a building I was riding past .. still got it somewhere, just as a lucky keepsake to use when I can’t find my rubber duck .. and every time I ride past that spot, I check and sure enough yup, one of those dastardly Venus’s or Apollonia’s or whatever it is, sits there, eternally nose-less from now on .. I mean, I’m not climbing up there to glue it on, and although I’m pretty sure there’s a department suitably led by an Austrian bureaucrat devoted to the subject of re-attaching lost parts of Vienna’s buildings, I don’t think I have the temerity to face the effort of bringing a fallen nose in for assessment …
Given the prevalence of classical artefacts in Berlin Museums and the number of German collectors over the past century or two, I suspect this was lost in modern times.
I remember finding what at that time seems like an ancient coins and some bones at my school playground while we were randomly digging at same place everyday to see how far we can go. On reporting it was rubbed off and we never knew what happened to those artifacts.
26 comments
[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 45.3 ms ] threadThat's roughly when The Mayflower set off, and St Peter's Basilica was built. And it's still a working pub, open every day.
https://www.theoldeboarshead.co.uk/about-the-pub/
Heh, some things never change.
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.
I found a bill from the Weimar hyperinflation era. Its face value was several billion (Milliarden). Its only value was as a curiosity.
Turns out, years later, they excavated a roman villa there. Funnily enough, the same beach has roman villas, dinosaur prints, austro-hungarian tunnels and yugoslavian bunkers. Quite a lot of history in one pretty beach.
Link should be updated to this.
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
https://youtu.be/xLfpSTmVSks?t=260&si=YvNcX7OmrVa2dXaA