Roman-era coin returned to museum by youngest donor

ÇANAKKALE

A child has become Türkiye's youngest artifact donor after delivering a coin from the 2,000-year-old Roman-era ancient city of Alexandria Troas that he found in the garden of his house to Troy Museum Director Rıdvan Gölcük via archaeologist Hazal Fırat.

Troy Museum is home to 2,000 artifacts in a closed area of ​​12,750 square meters, built with an expenditure of approximately 70 million Turkish liras at the entrance of the Troy Ruins, which sheds light on the 5,600 years of history in the northwestern province of Çanakkale.

Within the scope of the "My Classmate Homer Project," the ancient city of Troy is explained to students in schools.

Ten-year-old Onur Özcan Çimen, who lives in Çıplak village, saw a shining object while riding his bicycle in the garden of his house. He thought that the object was ancient money and reported it to his family. Then, he contacted Fırat, an archaeologist at the Troy Museum, who talked about Troy at his school as part of the "My Classmate Homer Project."

On May 6, Çimen showed the coin to Gölcük saying that he wanted to donate it to the museum. During the examination carried out in the museum, it was determined that the money was a 2,000-year-old city coin of the ancient city of Alexandria Troas.

The coin depicts the bust of Emperor Commodus on one side and Apollo Smintheus on the other.

Çimen became the youngest artifact donator in Türkiye. The first donator was 11-year-old Necdet, born in 1923, who donated a Roman-era funerary stele he found in a field 90 years ago to the Çanakkale Museum in 1934.

“He donated the coin to Troy Museum. Onur is 10 years old. In the past, we organized a small-sized exhibition at Troy Museum featuring Necdet, who donated an artifact to the museum in 1934. Necdet was 11 years old when he made this donation. Nearly 90 years later, Çıplak villager Onur has become Türkiye's youngest artifact donor at the age of 10,” Gölcük said.