Agence France Presse reports that in 1945, Webber's grandfather gave him the 5.5-inch high mug to play with when he was a child. Webber always assumed the cup, which is decorated with the heads of two women facing in opposite directions, their foreheads garlanded with two knotted snakes, was made of brass. Webber, a 70-year-old Brit, was preparing to move and found the cup in a shoebox under his bed. He decided to have it appraised. That is when he found out this was no brass mug. Experts say it is made from a single sheet of gold and dates to the third or fourth century B.C. The manufacture and composition of the gold is "consistent with Achaemenid gold and gold smithing," reports AFP, which notes that the Achaemenid empire was the first of the Persian empires to rule over significant portions of Greater Iran. In 330 B.C., it was wiped out by Alexander the Great.
So where did Webber's grandfather find the mug? Webber told The Guardian newspaper that his grandfather had a "good eye" for antiques and picked up "all sorts" as a professional scrap metal dealer in the town of Taunton in southwest England. The cup will be auctioned at Duke's in Dorchester, England on June 5.
