Israel uncovers gold coins, believed to be hidden from Crusaders

Archaeologists have dug up 24 gold coins and a gold earring, believed to be some 900 years old, at the Caesarea National Park in northern Israel.

The Israel Antiquities Authority announced the discovery on Monday after a bronze pot containing the coins and the ancient piece of jewellery were found hidden between two stones in the side of a well in a neighbourhood dating back to the Abbasid and Fatimid period, spanning the second half of the 8th century to the 11th century.

According to the directors of the excavation, Peter Gendelman and Mohammed Hatar, the coins date back to the end of the 11th century, and "make it possible to link the treasure to the Crusader conquest of the city in the year 1101, one of the most dramatic events in the medieval history of the city."

Most of the inhabitants of Caesarea were thought to have been massacred by the army of Baldwin I (1100–1118), king of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.

"It is reasonable to assume that the treasure’s owner and his family perished in the massacre or were sold into slavery, and therefore were not able to retrieve their gold," Gendelman and Hatar said in joint statement.

Robert Kool, a coin expert at the antiquities authority, said that among the coins were six extremely rare Byzantine imperial gold coins.

The discovery was made in the framework of a more than 150-million-shekel (40-million-dollar) excavation and conservation project.

Earlier excavations have revealed antiquities from the time of King Herod through to the Crusader period.