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An amateur scuba diving club recently unearthed the biggest treasure trove of gold coin ever found in Israel . The stash was reveal after wintertime storms shift the sands off the coast of Caesarea in Israel . The coin are about 1,000 - year previous , and were minted by the Fatimid Caliphate , which rule much of North Africa and the Mediterranean at the meter . [ Read the full story on the trove of amber coins ]
Bustling city
The coins were ascertain in Caesarea National Park , an archeological heritage situation that preservers the corpse of the ancient urban center of Caesarea . Caesarea was a harbor metropolis constitute by King Herod the dandy about 2,000 years ago . At the prison term the coins were minted , the city was a bustling , comfortable port wine that played an important role in the Fatimid ’s trading connection .
More than toys
Mint condition
The antiquities authority before long chance a vast treasure trove of amber coin , the largest ever unearthed in Israel . All told , about 2,000 amber coin were discovered under the ocean . Despite expend a millenium in the harsh seawater surroundings , the coin were in pristine condition and need no refurbishing or preservation work . That ’s because gold , as a imposing metal , does not respond with melody or weewee .
Wealthy Kingdom
The gold coin were minted by caliphs who ruled the Fatimid Kingdom , which span much of North Africa and the Mediterranean . The earliest coin in the treasure trove was minted in Sicility in the ninth century , though most were minted by the caliphs Al Hakim and Al Zahir , who ruled between A.D. 996 and A.D. 1031 . Some of the same type of coins were circulating decades later , when crusaders conquered Jerusalem in A.D. 1099 .
Princely sum
It ’s not clean how this huge trove of coins came to perch at the bottom of the ocean . The money which make out in appellative of dinars , half dinars , and quarter dinar , represent a princely join in the Medieval time when it was circulating . For example , liberate several captives would have cost century of Kuwaiti dinar , according to eleventh and twelfth century documents find in the Cairo Geniza , a trove of Jewish text file found in the storage room of an ancient Jewish tabernacle .
tooth mark
Some of the coins harbored tooth marks , potential from traders who try out the coins ' metal by biting into them . ( atomic number 79 is a soft metallic element that leaves tooth impressions , while severely , but cheaper metallic element do not . ) Some of the coins had chicken feed marks from frequent usage , while others seemed to be freshly strike .
lose to sea
It ’s not clean-cut how such a Brobdingnagian treasure trove of gilt coin wind up buried beneath the wave . One possibility is that a treasury ship oppressed with tax gross sink off the seashore of Caesarea . Another possibility is that the draw make out from a merchandiser ship that trade up and down the Mediterranean , but sank on one of its route .
