by KRISTIN ROMEY
These gold coins are among thousands recently discovered by scuba divers on the seabed of the ancient harbor near the Israeli town of Caesarea. PHHOTO/Jack Guez, AFP/Getty
A cache of medieval Arab gold coins may already be the largest in the eastern Mediterranean, and there’s probably more to come.
An unprecedented discovery of more than 2,000 gold coins off the north-central coast of Israel might be part of the largest gold hoard ever found in the eastern Mediterranean, according to archaeologists.
The coins are identified as dinars, the official currency of the Fatimid caliphate that ruled much of the Mediterranean from A.D. 909 to 1171.
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Fatimid dinars feature the names of the caliphs they were minted under, as well as the date and location where they were minted. “They’re first-class historical documents,” explains Robert Kool, curator of the IAA’s Coin Department.
At its height in the mid-tenth to mid-eleventh centuries A.D., Fatimid rule stretched across North Africa and Sicily to the Levant, with trade ties that extended all the way to China. From its capital in Cairo, the caliphate controlled access to gold from sources in West Africa to the Mediterranean, and the currency crafted from the precious metal conveyed the Fatimids’ formidable power and wealth.
A cursory study reveals that the earliest coin from the hoard was minted in Palermo, Sicily, while the majority came from official Fatimid mints in Egypt and other parts of North Africa and date to the reigns of Caliphs al-Hakim (A.D. 996-1021) and his son al-Zahir (A.D. 1021-1036). The coins are of two different denominations—whole dinars and quarter dinars—and are of various weights and sizes. Initial tests indicate that they are 24-karat gold with a purity of upwards of 95 percent.
“The amount of currency minted under the Fatimids is truly staggering,” says Kool, who notes that as late as 1120 the caliphate’s treasury was said to hold around 12 million dinars. “It was truly a monetary society. People got paid.”
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