Hundreds of gold and silver coins buried 2,000 years ago unearthed by metal detectorists in the Netherlands

Hundreds of Roman-era gold and silver coins were found in a field outside a village in the Netherlands, officials announced this week. 

The coins are thousands of years old, the Netherlands' Cultural Heritage Agency said in a news release, and are a mix of Roman and British coins. Bunnik, the village where they were buried, was once along the northern border of the Roman Empire. It's the first time such a find has been made on the European mainland, the agency said, with the only other comparable discovery having been made in Great Britain. 

Two metal detectorists made the discovery, then formally reported the coins to authorities. An archaeologist then examined the findings to confirm their veracity, and a larger excavation was conducted.