Israel: Found 6kg of ancient gold coins under the sea

Amateur divers have found more than 2,000 ancient gold coins weighing up to 6kg dating back thousands of years off the coast of the port city of Caesarea, Israel.

The gold coins may have washed ashore during a recent storm and provide valuable archaeological evidence from the Fatimid period, around the 10th-11th century, said Kobi Sharvit, director of Israel's maritime archaeology unit.

The divers initially thought they had found toy coins but later brought the gold coins to archaeologists for examination.

Archaeologists then used metal detectors and discovered a large amount of gold coins around the area where the divers found the first coins. The divers handed over all the coins found to the research agency.

Robert Kool, a numismatic expert at the Israel Antiquities Authority, confirmed that the coins were found in excellent condition. “They are completely clean and new, despite being on the seabed for more than a millennium,” Kool said.

Sharvit said the gold coins could have come from a ship carrying tax money to Egypt or from a merchant ship off the Mediterranean coast.

The discovery of these gold coins could help add to “our understanding of the entire archaeological context and answer many questions that have remained unanswered for a long time,” Sharvit added.

According to Vietnamnet