Volunteers discover 1,100-year-old hoard of pure gold coins

The discovery of more than four hundred ninth-century gold coins could help archaeologists better understand the region's history. The treasure was discovered by two young temporary workers during archaeological work on a hillside in Yavne, Israel. At the time of their discovery, the coins were worth the value of a luxury villa in a prestigious area of the capital.

"I dug into the ground and when I uncovered the first layers, I saw what looked like very thin leaves," explained Oz Cohen, one of the brigade. "When I looked again and better, I found that they were gold coins. It was really exciting to find such a strange and ancient treasure."

The 18-year-olds spent their summer vacation volunteering in a large-scale salvage project associated with the development south of Tel Aviv. This program combines young people's interest in history with the opportunity to participate in its discovery on the ground. Robert Kool - an expert numismatist with the Israel Antiquities Authority - said the find is "a rare treasure that could help archaeologists gain a deeper understanding of events in the region at the time."

The coins, weighing 845 grams, are made of pure gold and date from the ninth century - a time when huge empire stretching from Persia in the east to North Africa in the west was ruled by the Abbasids. This period is one of the least explored, and any find helps to better understand a number of important contexts.

"The assemblage consists of whole gold dinars, but also - unusually - contains about 270 small gold cuttings, cutpieces of gold dinars that were used as coins of lesser value, i.e. small coins," Mr Kool said in a statement. "Scraps of gold and silver coins used to be quite common in the monetary system of IslamM countries after 850, when bronze and copper coins declined rapidly," he explained.

One of the offcuts was a fragment of a gold solidus from the Constantinople mintage of Emperor Theophilus, who ruled from 829 to 842. Researchers say the appearance of a coin of a Byzantine ruler in a set of Islamic coins is evidence of a continuous connection between the two rival empires during this period. According to Kool, similar coins have never before been found in excavations in Israel,

Archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority believe that there was a brisk international trade between the local population and people from far away. "The person who deposited this treasure 1,100 years ago must have expected to retrieve it again. She even secured the container with a nail to prevent it from moving," the statement said. "We can only guess what prevented the owner from retrieving it."

The treasure was of considerable value in its day; a person could buy a luxury house in one of the best neighborhoods in Fustat, Egypt's extremely wealthy capital at the time."

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Sources: timesofisrael.com, nypost.com, cnn.com