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What Happens to the Coins Tossed into Rome’s Trevi Fountain? 

Catholic charity Caritas employee Fabrizio Marchioni, 52, dries coins collected at the Trevi Fountain, at the Caritas office in Rome, Italy, February 26, 2024. (Reuters)
Catholic charity Caritas employee Fabrizio Marchioni, 52, dries coins collected at the Trevi Fountain, at the Caritas office in Rome, Italy, February 26, 2024. (Reuters)
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What Happens to the Coins Tossed into Rome’s Trevi Fountain? 

Catholic charity Caritas employee Fabrizio Marchioni, 52, dries coins collected at the Trevi Fountain, at the Caritas office in Rome, Italy, February 26, 2024. (Reuters)
Catholic charity Caritas employee Fabrizio Marchioni, 52, dries coins collected at the Trevi Fountain, at the Caritas office in Rome, Italy, February 26, 2024. (Reuters)

As visitors' coins splash into Rome's majestic Trevi Fountain carrying wishes for love, good health or a return to the Eternal City, they provide practical help to people the tourists will never meet.

For hundreds of years, when in Rome, visitors have flocked to the fountain to make a wish, following a storied ritual. Few gave their coins a second thought.

Today, coins pile up for several days before they are fished out and taken to the Rome division of the worldwide Catholic charity Caritas, which counts the bucketfuls of change and uses them to fund a food bank, soup kitchen and welfare projects.

In 2022 Caritas collected 1.4 million euros ($1.52 million) from the fountain and it expects to have gathered even more in 2023. Rome is one of the world's most visited cities with 21 million tourists.

Extracting the coins is a spectacle and involves workers from regional utility ACEA balancing on the edge of the vast Baroque fountain, using long brooms and suction hoses.

The coins are then given to Caritas, where they are dried with hairdryers and cutlery dryers and sorted and counted.

Signs around the fountain explain that the change will go to charity - a thought that pleases many of the tourists posing by the landmark.

"I wanted to make a wish which is dear to my heart," said Yula Cole from Brazil after throwing in a coin. "But I also know that this coin is not just staying there but will help needy people. I made a wish but hopefully this money will help other people's wishes too."

Day and night, throngs of people crowd around the fountain posing for photos. Legend says that if you throw a coin by the right hand over the left shoulder into the fountain, you will return to Rome. People eagerly add their own personal wishes.

"I am tossing a coin as they say if you toss a coin you come back to Rome and also because I want to make the wish to find love," said Carola from Chile.

The Trevi Fountain, completed in 1762, covers one side of Palazzo Poli in central Rome with its statues of Tritons guiding the shell chariot of the god Oceanus, illustrating the theme of the taming of the waters.

It is where Italian film director Federico Fellini set one of the most famous scenes in cinema in "La Dolce Vita", with Anita Ekberg wading into the fountain after midnight and beckoning Marcello Mastroianni to join her.

Wading into its waters today is forbidden and tourists face fines if they do.

Coin sorting

Twice a week, up to four workers collect the coins, said Francesco Prisco, a manager at ACEA. The fountain is drained for cleaning twice a month.

"The collection and cleaning operations are carried out as quickly as possible to try to reduce the downtime of the fountain," he said.

After the coins have been swept into a long line by a long-reach broom, they are sucked up by hoses and taken to Caritas' office, where employee Fabrizio Marchioni spreads them across a huge table for drying.

Not just coins are fished from the fountain. Workers have removed jewellery, dentures, religious medals, even umbilical cords.

Signs by the fountain warn not to steal the coins.

Over the decades the coins have been targeted, sometimes with magnets attached to a pole.

Close to Rome's main station is Caritas' supermarket, known as the Emporium, which allocates food to needy residents who can purchase it with tokens on a card.

"I was a blacksmith but then I lost my position and my arthritis does not help in finding a new job. Luckily there are places like this Emporium," said a man who gave his name only as Domenico.

Another man, Luigi, explained: "I was a builder and also the owner of a video surveillance system company before I lost my job. Places like this Emporium give concrete help."

Back at the fountain, the coins stack up.

"I got told that if I toss in two coins my wishes will come true. So that's why I did it," said Chinese tourist Yuting.

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Culture

Türkiye in Cultural Diplomacy Push to Bring History Home

Türkiye's is waging an increasingly assertive campaign to recover antiquities illegally taken abroad. Ozan KOSE / AFP
Türkiye's is waging an increasingly assertive campaign to recover antiquities illegally taken abroad. Ozan KOSE / AFP
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Türkiye in Cultural Diplomacy Push to Bring History Home

Türkiye's is waging an increasingly assertive campaign to recover antiquities illegally taken abroad. Ozan KOSE / AFP
Türkiye's is waging an increasingly assertive campaign to recover antiquities illegally taken abroad. Ozan KOSE / AFP

When an ancient bronze statue of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius landed back on Turkish soil after decades abroad, it was more than a symbolic homecoming.

It marked the latest victory in Türkiye's increasingly assertive push to recover antiquities illegally taken abroad -- a campaign supported by a newly-developed AI tool for identifying cultural assets of Turkish origin.

The life-sized bronze, which dates back to the second- or third-century, was taken in the 1960s from the ancient city of Bubon near Türkiye's southwestern Antalya resort.

After a years-long investigation involving research, scientific testing and statements from now elderly witnesses, the headless statue arrived back in Türkiye last year.

Its repatriation from an Ohio museum involved cooperation with the US Department of Homeland Security and the Manhattan District Attorney's Office.

For Zeynep Boz, director of Türkiye's department for combating the illicit trafficking of cultural property, one moment stands out.

"I clearly remember when the computer finally processed the data and we saw the match come together. It was an exciting moment," she told AFP at Istanbul's archaeology museum.

That the statue survived at all is exceptional: in antiquity, bronze was a valuable raw material routinely melted down for weapons, coins or everyday objects.

"For this reason, bronze statues of this scale have rarely been preserved until today," she said.

For years, Cleveland's Museum of Art had dragged its feet, claiming there was insufficient evidence to prove where it came from, Boz said.

But that changed after archaeometry expert Professor Ernst Pernicka concluded there was "no doubt whatsoever" the statue came from Bubon, where an imperial shrine housed bronze sculptures of Roman emperors.

Soil and lead samples provided crucial scientific evidence which convinced the museum, Boz said.

"It was a long struggle. We were determined and patient and we won," Culture Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said when the statue returned in July.

Türkiye has stepped up efforts to combat illicit antiquities trading and in 2025 alone secured the repatriation of 180 cultural artefacts.

- AI to identify trafficked objects -

Although its newly-developed AI-powered "TraceART" system was not involved in recovering the Marcus Aurelius statue, the tool helped identify two 16th-century Iznik tiles that were recovered from Britain this month.

Developed by the culture ministry, it scans images on sales platforms, auctions and social media to identify any cultural assets of Turkish origin that may have been trafficked, with flagged items sent for expert assessment.

TraceART went operational in 2025 and has since identified hundreds of objects for review, Boz said.

In January, Türkiye recovered an Anatolian-style marble head from Denver Art Museum in Colorado, said Burcu Ozdemir of the antiquities trafficking unit.

The museum contacted Ankara because the piece "had been donated by the wife of a US consul general who served in Istanbul in the 1940s", she said.

Türkiye's campaign also involves returning items to countries like Iran, China and Egypt.

"We returned two of the artefacts stolen from temples in China," Boz told AFP.

Türkiye also returned "a key of the Kaaba to Egypt" after realizing it had ended up in Türkiye illegally, she said of the cube-shaped stone structure at Makkah’s Grand Mosque.

- Ottoman tiles at the Louvre -

Türkiye is now seeking the repatriation of other antiquities taken during the Ottoman era: an ancient marble torso called the "Old Fisherman" from Berlin, and dozens of Iznik tiles held at France's Louvre museum.

"There's an assumption that artefacts taken in the 18th-19th centuries were acquired legally. We don't share that view," Boz said.

The illegal tile swap came to light in 2003 when one fell from the wall of an Ottoman-era library and on the back was the French manufacturer's mark.

The original and others were taken in the late 1800s by a Frenchman who claimed to be restoring them, then replaced them with fakes.

"We have repeatedly shared evidence with France and talked with the Louvre but no resolution has been reached," she said.

The tiles were on a panel by the tomb of Ottoman Sultan Selim II in the garden of the Hagia Sophia.

Today it bears a plaque in English, French and Turkish reading: "The tiles before us are replicas."

The originals are currently on display at a branch of the Louvre in Lens, 200 kilometers north of Paris, which says they were "bought in 1895".

The museum did not respond to several requests for comment from AFP.

Culture

Study Suggests Younger Age for Chile's Important Monte Verde Archaeological Site

An aerial view of the of the Monte Verde archaeological site in southern Peru, in this 2023 photograph released on March 18, 2026. Todd Surovell/via REUTERS
An aerial view of the of the Monte Verde archaeological site in southern Peru, in this 2023 photograph released on March 18, 2026. Todd Surovell/via REUTERS
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Study Suggests Younger Age for Chile's Important Monte Verde Archaeological Site

An aerial view of the of the Monte Verde archaeological site in southern Peru, in this 2023 photograph released on March 18, 2026. Todd Surovell/via REUTERS
An aerial view of the of the Monte Verde archaeological site in southern Peru, in this 2023 photograph released on March 18, 2026. Todd Surovell/via REUTERS

The Monte Verde archaeological site in Chile, discovered in the 1970s, revolutionized the thinking about when humans entered the Americas, with scientists calculating decades ago that this former abode for ancient hunter-gatherers was about 14,500 years old. But a new study suggests it is much more recent than that.

Researchers said a fresh analysis of this Ice Age creek valley site found it dates to between 4,200 and 8,200 years ago. Such a date would make Monte Verde irrelevant to the longstanding scientific debate about when the initial peopling of the Western Hemisphere occurred.

"This finding suggests a later date of human arrival to the Americas than is widely believed," said University of Wyoming archaeologist Todd Surovell, lead author of the research published on Thursday in the journal Science.

The researchers used three scientific dating methods on material from in and around Monte Verde, located in southern Chile about 36 miles (58 km) from the Pacific coast.

"We sampled in the site area. We also sampled the same landforms upstream and downstream of the site," Reuters quoted Surovell as saying.

"These landforms are continuous throughout ⁠the valley, and our ⁠dating of them was consistent in all locations. We placed these into stratigraphic (soil and rock layers) context, and the dating errors of the previous investigators were immediately apparent," Surovell said.

Testing in 1997 concluded the site was 14,500 years old. That would make it more than 1,500 years older than the previous earliest-known human occupation sites south of the continental ice sheets that covered parts of North America at the time. Those sites were associated with North America's Clovis culture, known for distinctive stone tools and named for a locale in New Mexico.

Because Monte Verde was considered older and was thousands of miles south of the Clovis locations, scientists saw it as evidence that people must ⁠have been in the Americas much earlier than the Clovis sites had indicated.

Humans are thought to have crossed from Siberia into Alaska over an Ice Age land bridge, then later journeyed south.

The new research dated pieces of wood, sand deposited by the creek and a layer of ancient volcanic ash.

"The dating of the volcanic ash was especially important," Surovell said.

The ash was determined to have been deposited about 11,000 years ago. It was in a layer that was below the evidence of occupation, showing that the human presence must have come after that date, Surovell said.

Within the age range indicated by the new testing, Surovell said the Monte Verde human occupation most likely dates to 6,000 to 8,000 years ago.

Surovell said the site's older age was calculated using a technique called radiocarbon dating on wood recovered there. Surovell said while the wood indeed was 14,500 years old, it greatly predated the human occupation and was simply mixed among older material trapped in the banks of the creek.

"Imagine the stream undercutting the bank as ⁠it meanders in the valley. Materials ⁠in the bank then get transported and redeposited by the stream," Surovell said.

Vanderbilt University anthropologist Tom Dillehay, who has studied Monte Verde extensively since the 1970s, cited "many methodological and empirical errors" in the new study.

Its interpretation of the wood, Dillehay said, "disregards a vast body of well-dated cultural evidence associated with Monte Verde, including stone tools, wooden and bone artifacts, edible plant remains including seaweed and potatoes, hearths, human footprints, and animal meat and hide remains."

"These and other elements constitute a complex cultural context that has been extensively documented over five decades of interdisciplinary archaeological research," Dillehay said. "In turning to their data, it is a mixture of inventions and misunderstandings. They saw what they wanted to see, and came to the site with predetermined conclusions."

The timing of the peopling of the Americas remains contentious.

"Monte Verde is internationally recognized as one of the most significant archaeological sites on the American continent, having played a decisive role in replacing the longstanding 'Clovis First' paradigm," Dillehay said, a theory positing that the first inhabitants of the Americas arrived approximately 12,800 years ago.

Surovell said the new findings show Monte Verde postdates the Clovis sites.

"The Monte Verde site is still important for understanding the Holocene (geological epoch, beginning 11,700 years ago) human occupation of its region, but it no longer has much significance for understanding the initial peopling of the Americas," Surovell said.

Culture

Prince Mohammed bin Salman Project Restores Historical Al-Saidan Mosque in Al-Jouf Region

The renovation uses traditional Al-Jouf mud-brick techniques and natural materials - SPA
The renovation uses traditional Al-Jouf mud-brick techniques and natural materials - SPA
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Prince Mohammed bin Salman Project Restores Historical Al-Saidan Mosque in Al-Jouf Region

The renovation uses traditional Al-Jouf mud-brick techniques and natural materials - SPA
The renovation uses traditional Al-Jouf mud-brick techniques and natural materials - SPA

The Prince Mohammed bin Salman Project for the Development of Historical Mosques has commenced the restoration of Al-Saidan Mosque in Dumat Al-Jandal, Al-Jouf Region. Dating back to 620 AH (1223 CE), it is the city's second oldest mosque and formerly served as a judicial court and a prominent educational center for Quranic studies.

As part of the project's second phase, the mosque's area will increase from 179 to 202.39 square meters, restoring its capacity to 68 worshippers after prayers were previously suspended, SPA reported.

The renovation uses traditional Al-Jouf mud-brick techniques and natural materials to preserve the site's authentic desert architecture.

Notable features being preserved include a historical well and an ancient underground stone water channel used for wudu.

By rehabilitating this landmark, the project fulfills its strategic goals of restoring architectural authenticity and highlighting the Kingdom’s civilizational heritage in line with Vision 2030.