Forget about finding a briefcase full of cash—just hope for a coffin full of flowers. In a Dorset garden, a Roman marble coffin was detected by auction valuer Guy Schwinge on a routine valuation, the BBC reports. While walking the grounds, Schwinge saw the coffin “peeping out from under some bushes.” He investigated and discovered the coffin wasn’t your ordinary, everyday pine box. “As I drew closer I realized I was looking at a Roman sarcophagus of exceptional quality,” Schwinge explained to the BBC. Experts believe it dates to the second century. Cha-ching! The coffin had apparently come into the possession of the owner’s family a century earlier when, according to an auction catalog from 1913, it “was imported to Britain by Queen Victoria’s surveyor of pictures.” Experts believe it was originally used as a final resting place for a high-ranking Roman official, according to the Daily Mail. The owners were apparently unaware of its value. And indeed, it’s worth a lot of money. The family auctioned off the flower pot/coffin for about $150,000 and are (not surprisingly) “utterly delighted” by the turn of events.
