Official German press statment: https://www.berlin.de/landesdenkmalamt/aktivitaeten/presse/2...
Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin
21–30 of 134 posts
Re: Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin
#22As 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.
Re: Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin
#23Can'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.
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.
Re: Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin
#24Can'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.
You can walk around the USA and find flint arrowheads ... not sure the Native Americans used coins as such.
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
Re: Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin
#25I 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.
I wonder if there were street vendors selling little replicas of the wooden horse.
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.
Re: Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin
#26Can'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.
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.
Re: Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin
#27I 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?
That's covered in the article.
Re: Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin
#28As 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 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.
Re: Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin
#29Germany was populated in antiquity?
Re: Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if there were street vendors selling little replicas of the wooden horse.
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.
"Be careful building that thing! It might go off!"