An 8-year-old boy playing in a sandbox at his elementary school in Germany unearthed an 1,800-year-old silver coin minted during the Roman Empire's Pax Romana.
Overwhelmed with excitement for literally finding buried treasure in the schoolyard, the fourth grader — identified only by his first name, Bjarne — rushed home to show the coin to his family in Bremen, a city in northern Germany, upon finding it in August 2022. After his parents contacted authorities, archaeologists confirmed that the coin was a Roman denarius minted during the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, who held the throne from A.D. 161 to 180, according to a translated statement released on Aug. 11.
