The gold coin unearthed by a metal detectorist in a field in Gundorf, northwest of Leipzig in Germany, may be small, but it belies a considerable history. The Saxon State Office of Archaeology, to which the finder Daniel Fest reported his discovery, has revealed that the two-gram, 2,200-year-old artifact is Saxony's oldest known coin. What's more, it's part of a larger story of 3rd-century B.C.E. trade in the region.

The office has confirmed the object is a Celtic coin, similar to pieces found in the formerly Celtic area of northern Bohemia. Today, that area sits at the northern edge of the Czech Republic and borders the Saxony region at Germany's eastern edge, where the piece was unearthed.

The coin's size and appearance designate its value as a "quarter stater." One side features a head, perhaps of a deer, with stylized eyes, snout, and antlers. The reverse features open, concentric rings with a sphere at the center. The form is also called a "rainbow bowl." The office's statement said that the name "originates from the superstition that where the rainbow touches the earth there is treasure and that the bowl-shaped gold pieces have fallen from the sky." The superstition may derive from the fact that rainwater washed such coins out of the earth, to be found in the fields after heavy rainfall ended.

The find confirms regular connections between Saxony and the Celts, as well as an appreciation of coinage that went beyond the merely commercial. State archaeologist Regina Smolnik noted that while her team refers to the object as a "coin," its "almost mint-fresh" condition means it was "hardly in circulation in the sense of a coin economy."

Intensive field surveys in recent years have produced nine other Celtic coins. The Gundorf rainbow bowl breaks a previous record from 2007, set by the discovery of a quinarius. That silver coin was minted in southern Germany in the early 1st century B.C.E. and was discovered near Zauschwitz, southwest of Leipzig. The Gundorf discovery offers insight into histories that extend even further back.

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Metal Detectorist Unearths Saxony's Oldest Known Coin, Dating Back 2,200 Years(https://news.artnet.com/art-world/oldest-coin-saxony-metal-detectorist-2705435)