We all know Isreal is an ancient place, it won't be surprising to find ancient treasures there.
An Israeli scuba club was diving off the coast of the ancient city of Caesarea, Israel when they came across the discovery of a lifetime just a few weeks ago. When a sparkle caught their eyes, the divers said they were expecting to see a toy coin. But the gold turned out to be real, and very plentiful. After collecting a few for proof they called the Israel Antiquities Authority to report the find.
The Israel Antiquities Authority said in a statement Tuesday nearly 2,000 gold coins that had laid preserved at the bottom of the sea for 1,000 years have now been recovered. "Despite the fact they were at the bottom of the sea for about a thousand years, they did not require any cleaning or conservation intervention from the metallurgical laboratory," said Robert Cole, a numismaticist.
The treasure is made up of many denominations and countries of origin with the oldest coin in the stash being minted in Italy around the ninth century, though most come from the Fatimid caliphs Al-Ḥākim and Al-Ẓāhir, who ruled between A.D. 996 and A.D. 1036. The collection includes no coins from the Eastern Islamic dynasties so it can be stated with certainty this is a Fatimid treasure.
There is probably a shipwreck there of an official treasury boat, which was on its way to the central government in Egypt with taxes that had been collected. Perhaps the treasure of coins was meant to pay the salaries of the Fatimid military garrison, which was stationed in Caesarea and protected the city," Kobi Sharvit, director of the Marine Archaeology Unit of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
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