The teenager discovered the precious metal at a depth of about 2 metres near the shore of Bavaria’s Koenigssee lake on Friday.

A 16 year old girl has made an unexpected find while lake-swimming in the German Alps – a 500g (17.6oz) bar of gold. Rather than keep it for herself, she handed it to local authorities.

This has helped experts work out that the gold bar is worth a whopping £11,500.

Divers on Tues. carried out a basic search of the world around where the bar was found, still did not find any more gold or different valuables.

Gold from the Nazi era was once said to have been dumped in the lake, which is on the border with Austria. There’s even talk that many other bars are lying at the bottom of the lake, just waiting to be found.

A picture released by officers shows the bar, which is 6cm long, has several markings including references to its weight and fineness.

So far, nobody has stepped forward to claim the bar as theirs.