A gold coin hoard, which to this day has been said by the Israel Antiquities Authority against the Abbasid dynasty, is being seen after its discovery at an archeological site in Central Israel on August 18, 2020. Image taken August 18, 2020. Heidi Levine / Pool via REUTERS
CENTRAL ISRAEL (Reuters) – Israeli youths have discovered hundreds of gold coins that have been stuck in a clay pot for more than a thousand years.
The treasure was discovered on August 18, the Israel Antiquities Authority said on Monday, by teenagers volunteering at an excavation in central Israel where a new neighborhood is planned to be built.
‘The person who buried this treasure 1,100 years ago had expected him to pick it up and even secure the ship with a nail so that it would not move. We can only guess what prevented him from coming back to collect this treasure, ”said excavation director Liat Nadav-Ziv.
The area was found in toilet workshops at the time the treasure was hidden and the identity of the owner is still a mystery.
“It was great,” said Oz Cohen, one of the volunteers who found the treasure.
‘I dug into the ground and when I dug out the ground, I saw what was seen from very thin leaves. When I looked again I saw that these were gold coins. It was really exciting to find such a special and ancient treasure. ”
Dating back to the nineteenth-century Abbasid caliphate period, the 425 24-carat pure gold coins would have been a significant amount at the time, said Robert Kool, a coin expert at the Antiquities Authority.
“For example, with such a sum, one could buy a luxury home in one of the best neighborhoods in Fustat, the enormously wealthy capital of Egypt in those days,” Kool said.
Report by Rinat Harash; Written by Maayan Lubell, edited by Ed Osmond
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