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Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin

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Re: Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin

#81

Post by globnomulous »

exitb wrote: post #4
lordleft wrote: post #2

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.

Was there anything resembling tourism in 300 BC?

Yes, definitely. There was tourism in Greece in the Classical Period, too. Epidaurus is a good example: a major religious sanctuary, side by side with a theatre and athletics venues, all part of the thriving local economy propped up entirely by tourism. Fun fact: history's first recorded hypochondriac was a frequent patient/visitor at the temple of Asclepius in Epidaurus.

Re: Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin

#84

Post by incanus77 »

hecturchi wrote: post #20

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.

Re: Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin

#85

Post by cxr »

eszed wrote: post #58
genxy wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get new $2 from your bank

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".

I believe that you have run into difficulty with some person(s) not understanding that $2 bills are real money.

I don't believe that they've been anywhere nearly as much of "a pain to spend" for you as you're stating. You're just gabbing.

Re: Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin

#86

Post by aaronharnly »

thehours wrote: post #17
exitb wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was there anything resembling tourism in 300 BC?

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

not exactly a tourist :) but the point stands

Re: Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin

#87

Post by jethkl »

hecturchi wrote: post #20

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.

> if you tell me someone just stumbles onto and old coin...

I found a bill from the Weimar hyperinflation era. Its face value was several billion (Milliarden). Its only value was as a curiosity.

Re: Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin

#89

Post by AlotOfReading »

tsoukase wrote: post #88

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.

Berlin specifically has a few meters of soil separating it from that period, but that's not always true. I've excavated millennia-old sites barely centimeters under the surface. Others are buried under meters of soil overnight. There's also natural processes moving things around in the soil (e.g. rabbits, freeze-thaw cycles), and human processes (e.g. tilling).

I wouldn't jump immediately to modern collector, nor does the article.

Re: Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin

#90

Post by ekaryotic »

nemo wrote: post #80
tdiff wrote: post #79

I don't get why people capable of making complex bas-relief could not make the coin more or less round

It is more or less round. While modern milled coining created nice neatly rounded coins, throughout the history of hammered coins they were very rarely anything like a perfectly rounded coin. They were creating these things in a mass production environment where they made tens of thousands (or more the Romans), quality control was focused on weight over all else. For silver coins and gold some issuers did often try t…

Do you happen to know the reason the term for english is sasanach in irish language. i.e. is there a connection between sasanach and sassanian.
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