Sarmizegetusa and the Dacian gold

Trajan smashed Dacia in 106 AD and took a haul so large Rome ran games for 123 days on it. The capital’s stone terraces and circular sanctuary still stand in the Orastie mountains. Then in the early 2000s spiral gold bracelets and thousands of koson coins began surfacing on the antiquities market: modern looters with metal detectors had got into the site. Romania has been prosecuting the thefts and buying the bracelets back ever since, and several are now in the national museum. Detecting here is a serious crime. UNESCO World Heritage.