While walking through Berlin's western neighborhood of Spandau, a 13-year-old made a discovery that has been hailed as highly significant in Germany's archaeological history.
He found a small bronze coin, which experts have since dated 2,300 years — back to the ancient Greek city of Troy, in present-day Turkey.
For archaeologist Jens Henker of Berlin Heritage Authority, who was responsible for analyzing the find, it was a situation unlike any has seen in his career: "This young boy realized he had found something interesting and he wanted to know more about it," Henker told DW.
During a school visit to the Archaeology Lab PETRI Berlin in the winter, the young treasure hunter and his teacher asked the staff to take a look at the coin. "My colleague looked at it and said 'oh, this is quite interesting!" recalls Henker.
From there, the coin passed from expert to expert in an attempt to determine its origins.
Eventually, it was an expert at the Münzkabinett Berlin (Numismatic Collection), which holds one of the world's most significant collections of coins, who said that the coin definitely originated from the ancient Greek city of Troy.
"For Berlin it's the first find fromGreek antiquity; although there are some other finds in Germany from this period, they are very rare."
Trade networks between northern Europe and the ancient Romans are well documented, but little is known about connections between ancient Greeks and Germanic tribes in the Iron Age.
"The Greeks don't write about us in Germany; they considered us barbarians. And the people here [in present-day Germany] didn't write at all, so we really depend on these finds to learn more about potential connections," says Henker.
The coin dates to the Hellenistic period, to 281 and 261 BC. Its references to ancient Greece are clear: On one side, it depicts the warrior goddess Athena wearing a Corinthian helmet, on the other, Athena wears a headdress and has a spear and a spindle. The small bronze coin weighs only 7 grams (0.25 ounces) and measures 12 millimeters (0.5 inches) and is currently on display at Berlin's PETRI museum in the "current finds" exhibition space.
"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.
Henker points out that metal objects are not typically found on ancient settlements, since they were typically smelted and reused over the ages: "However, metal was sometimes put in graves as a kind of grave gift. This appears to be like a souvenir, used to remember something — perhaps even an experience in one's life."
What we know about ancient Greeks going North
One of the only ancient Greeks who is known to have ventured north was Pytheas, a Greek explorer who around 330 BC traveled from present-day Marseille, France to northern Europe, documenting the British Isles, traveled to the Arctic Ocean and possibly even reached the Baltic Sea. "He describes northern lights and the open sea with ice. In his time he was dismissed by the Greeks who didn't believe him and thought he was making it up for attention," Henker points out.
Later, however, scholars confirmed that he had in fact traveled such a distance. The general assumption was that he was after amber, fossilized tree resin that was used in medicine for their purported healing properties. The so-called "amber road" is one of the only known trade routes between the Mediterranean and northern Europe.
"But I think that's not the whole story; there could be something deeper, because if you think about that these big troops that the Greeks and Macedonians had at the time, they recruited people from other countries [to serve in them]. It could be that there were people who went there from the North and returned, and that there are connections in this way," suggests Henker.
Could the coin have been someone's souvenir from Greece that was later buried with them?
As the archaeologist notes, the true story of how the coin came to be in the German capital ultimately remains a mystery. "All of these potential explanations of how the Greek coin came here are just guesses. If this coin could tell its story, it would probably be a crazy one with a lot in it."
Edited by: Elizabeth Grenier
