Diver accidentally discovers world's oldest gold coin
A diver in Bulgaria discovered what is thought to be the world's oldest gold coin — and the find was apparently accidental.
The scuba diver saw the coin near Sozopol on Bulgaria's Black Sea coast, Bulgaria's BTA news agency reported, and gave it to Bozhidar Dimitrov, the head of the National History Museum in Sofia.
The museum found that the coin appears to have been minted in western Anatolia in the second half of the seventh century B.C.E., making it more than 2,750 years old. The coin is thought to be from Lydia, a land in Anatolia that's believed to be the originator of gold and silver coins.
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Vladimir Penchev, a numismatist at the National History Museum, told BTA that the coin is made of electrum, an alloy of gold and silver used in early coins. He noted that the coin is "the first of its kind" to be found in Bulgaria, The Sofia Globe reports. --Meghan DeMaria
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Meghan DeMaria is a staff writer at TheWeek.com. She has previously worked for USA Today and Marie Claire.
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