Benjamin Coady, 13, spots mistake on map at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

A seventh-grader is making international headlines for finding an error at one of the world's top museums.

In September 2011, Connecticut teen Benjamin Lerman Coady visited New York's famed Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The young history buff spotted an inaccuracy in a map of the Justinian conquests. The map claimed to show the Byzantine Empire at its largest, but Coady, who had studied the empire at school, noticed that Spain and part of northern Morocco were missing from the illustration.

At first, no one believed the 13 year old.

"The front desk didn't believe me," Coady told The Hartford Courant. "I'm only a kid."

Coady filled out a form museum workers handed him, never expecting a response. Soon after, he received a notice from the museum stating that his comments were being forwarded to the Met's medieval art department.

This January, Helen Evans, the museum's curator for Byzantine art, emailed him to validate his correction and to invite him to meet her at the museum.

"You are, of course, correct about the boundaries of the Byzantine Empire under Justinian," she wrote. "You are the first person to recognize the mistake and we thank you for bringing it to our attention."

Coady returned to the museum in February, where Evans gave him a private tour that included a first glance at a yet-unopened exhibit. She even gave him an assignment: draw what the revised map should look like.

Evans says the museum is still deciding how to best correct the error which likely stemmed from a map reprint a few years ago.

While Coady's impressive correction made international headlines this month, he was unaware of the media attention. His mother, Joanne Lerman, told the Associated Press last week that Coady was at a leadership camp with his classmates when the story broke. Poor cell-phone reception made it difficult to inform of the story.

"He's going to be floored," Lerman said. "He was just happy receiving the letter from the museum and the recognition from the museum. I'm proud."

While Evans claims Coady's attention to detail "may be the makings of a young historian," Coady would prefer to dream of a career in exotic cars.