CAESAREA COAST, ISRAEL- A new find of an old treasure is causing new looks at a region’s archeological history.
Divers found about 2,000 coins in Israel off the coast of Caesarea.
The discovery occurring on seabed two weeks ago, and the coins are believed to be about a 2,000 years old.
The ‘fatimid’ coins are from the 11th century AD, and are probably from a shipwreck from a boat headed from Caesarea to Cairo, Egypt.
One expert says coins of this kind aren’t normally found at sea, and this makes the discovery a treasure-trove of information as well.
“Coins like this were found in land excavation in many sites. Also in Caesarea they found the past hoard of something like one-hundred coins. But this is for the first time that we found a so huge hoard for something like two-thousand coins,” said Jacod Sharvit of the Israel Antiques Authority.
Caesarea is in northern Israel, and in biblical times, was known as an administrative area of the Roman Empire.
Sharvat says the shipwreck was from a Muslim naval boat and is an early indication that Muslim traders had a navy, and even did trading in the Mediterranean with Byzantine-era Christians.
