That time I found a Roman coin in my school's parking lot

I was supervising a field trip last spring, waiting for the bus, and I saw a weird green circle poking out of a gravel patch. I dug it out with my keys, and it had a faint emperor's face on it. The local museum confirmed it was a 4th century Roman coin, probably dropped by a collector decades ago. Now I walk with my eyes glued to the ground every time I'm outside. Has anyone else found something ancient in a totally random spot?

2 comments

2 Comments

sanchez.pat1mo ago

Oh man, isn't it wild how just looking down changes everything? I swear, once you start paying attention to the ground, you realize how much junk we just walk past every day. I found an old skeleton key from like the 1800s in a parking lot once, and now I can't stop scanning for weird shapes in gravel and cracks in the asphalt. It's like our whole daily lives are just built on top of a giant garbage dump from the past, but nobody ever bothers to notice. Makes you wonder what else is just sitting there waiting to be kicked up by a shoe.

the_jordan29d ago

That skeleton key find is awesome. I picked up a 1950s dog tag in a gutter last week near an old bus stop. No idea who the dog was but it felt important. You're right about the layers thing. Moving furniture out of old houses I see it all the time. The ground just keeps swallowing stuff up and spitting it back out years later.