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A man recently discovered nearly 1,500 silver coins from ancient Rome while hiking in a field in Romania
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Local Marius Mangeac was walking with his metal detector, as he “often” does, when the detector emitted a “strong signal,” so he started digging
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Mangeac ultimately turned the coins over to local authorities, but says he hopes to show his child the treasure in a museum someday, “where I can explain I was lucky enough to discover a page [from] the history of our people”
A man recently discovered nearly 1,500 silver coins from ancient Rome while hiking.
Romanian man Marius Mangeac made the discovery in April while walking with his metal detector in a field near Letea Veche, a small village in the southern part of the country.
Mangeac posted about the find in a Facebook post translated from Romanian, writing that he “did not predict anything would come” of the excursion when he left his home to take a walk that day — and definitely did not think he would come “face to face with history.”
“I took my detector and left alone, as I often do, to exercise and to relax in the fields and the forests,” he wrote.
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Metal detector (stock image)
Mangeac went on to explain that he uncovered the coins after his metal detector generated a “strong signal” from a specific spot of grass, adding, “I could feel my heart beating quite hard and I even thought about pinching myself to convince myself that I was not in a dream.”
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The local said that — after spending “two days” meticulously “taking pictures of every coin” — he ultimately handed them over to the local town hall.
“I hope that one day I will go with my child to the museum, where I can explain how I was lucky enough to discover a page [from] the history of our people,” he added in his post.
Mangeac told Romanian news station TVR Info that he hadn’t even originally planned to go walking in the field that day.
“Initially, I wanted to go to the forest, but there was tall grass, and I saw this field, and I thought I should go to the field, try it,” he told the outlet.
He says he started digging and eventually hit something.
“There was a loud noise from the shovel, and when I dug further, I saw that there were shards and coins,” he said, recalling that he initially did not know what to do.
TVR noted that two officers carefully counted the coins after Mangeac brought them to city hall, and the town’s mayor, Marian Negru, told the outlet that tourists now have yet another reason to visit their town, which is steeped in Roman history.
Marius Mangeac
Marius Mangeac with the Roman coins he found.
The silver coins — called denarii — were introduced in Rome in 211 B.C. and were the dominant form of currency for about 500 years, per the Art Institute of Chicago. The coins typically featured the faces of key gods and goddesses on one side, and depicted things like animals, natural resources and other important symbols to the empire on the other.
The Institute notes that the goddess Roma, who was “the personification of Rome,” was the most popular image on the silver denarii for many years.
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