PRICELESS DISCOVERY

Amateur Archeologist Unearths Priceless 2,000-Year-Old Haul

The 934 silver Roman coins amount to roughly six years of a soldier’s savings.

An amateur archeologist has discovered Germany’s largest-ever hoard of ancient Roman silver coins. Oliver Reidl was searching a field in Wesseling, western Germany, with a metal detector when he realized something was buried beneath him. Researchers later recovered 934 silver denarii dating to the reign of Emperor Hadrian, nearly 2,000 years ago, between 39 B.C. and A.D. 459. They believe the coins, weighing around 6.8 pounds in total, were likely deliberately hidden during the second century A.D. “Of course, we can only speculate about the motives, but it’s very likely that someone wanted to keep this money safe,” Erich Classen, state archeologist and director of the office, told the Associated Press. “After all, banks didn’t exist back then.” Now displayed at the LVR-LandesMuseum in Bonn, the treasure has left archaeologists wondering who buried it — and why. One theory points to a Roman soldier. Legionaries earned about 300 denarii a year, with roughly half going on food and equipment. Researchers estimate the hoard represented around six years of savings.