Israeli Teens Discovered 1,100 Years Old Pure 24-Karat Gold Coins
Tags: Culture, World, History, Israel, Gold

Israeli Teens Discovered 1,100 Years Old Pure 24-Karat Gold Coins

Photo Credits: CNN

Two teenagers from Israel were on a summer break when they found a trove of hundreds of gold coins that date back to the end of the 9th century.

Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said that the treasure was discovered in an archaeological dig in Yavne in the Central District of Israel.

One of the coin experts working with IAA, Robert Kool, said that the coins were from the time when the region was under the Islamic control of the Abbasid Caliphate.

The Abbasids had control from modern-day Algeria to Afghanistan.

A total of 425 coins were found and all of them were made of pure 24-karat gold, and weighed 845 grams (about 1.86 pounds).

According to Kool,

“With such a sum, a person could buy a luxurious house in one of the best neighborhoods in Fustat, the enormous wealthy capital of Egypt in those days,”

Photo Credits: The Indian Express

The teens who found the coins were participating in pre-military national service at the time. They initially thought that they had found some leaves in a jar.

Oz Cohen, one of the boys who found the coins said,

“It was amazing. I dug in the ground and when I excavated the soil, saw what looked like very thin leaves. When I looked again I saw these were gold coins. It was really exciting to find such a special and ancient treasure.”

Being a history student, I can tell you that it is exceedingly rare to find such a large cache of pure gold coins. This is because the gold was often melted down and reused by people of later civilizations.

Experts from the Israel Antiquities Authority said,

“The coins, made of pure gold that does not oxidize in air, were found in excellent condition, as if buried the day before. Their finding may indicate that international trade took place between the area’s residents and remote areas,”

They further added that,

“The person who buried this treasure 1,100 years ago must have expected to retrieve it, and even secured the vessel with a nail so that it would not move. We can only guess what prevented him from returning to collect this treasure,”

The jar contained full gold dinars as well as smaller cuttings of gold coins which were used as small change back in those days.

One of the cuttings found was an exceptionally rare piece and showed a fragment of Theophilos, the famous Byzantine emperor. This means that the piece would’ve been minted in Constantinople, the capital of the neighboring empire.

Photo Credits: The Times of Israel

The fact that the fragment of a Christian ruler was discovered in an Islamic coin hoard tells us about the connections that these empires had both in the times of peace and war.

Other Recent Discoveries

A hiker in 2016 found a 2000-year-old gold coin in eastern Galilee which had the face of a Roman emperor. The coin was so rare there is only one other similar coin that exists in the whole world.

Furthermore, a group of divers in 2015 found a trove of nearly 2,000 gold coins from the ancient Mediterranean harbor of Caesarea. The coins were reported to be 1,000 years old.