A treasure was hidden between two stones on the side of a well, in an ancient house and neighborhood of the Abbasiti and Fatimid Caliphates in the Cesarea National Park in Israel.
These were coins dating back to the late 11th century and it is possible to relate the treasure to the conquest of the city by the Crusaders in 1101 one of the most dramatic events in the medieval history of the city.
According to contemporary written sources, most of Caesarea’s inhabitants were massacred by The Army of Baldwin I (1100-1118), the king of Jerusalem at the time of the Crusades.
Caesarea, where they were used as a local currency at the time and aThe find is a unique combination of currencies not seen so far in Israel consisting of two types of coins: 18 Fatimid dinars, well known for previous excavations in small and extremely rare group of 6 Byzantine imperial gold coins.
Five of the coins are concave and belong to the reign of the Byzantine emperor Michael VII Ducas (1071-1079).
These currencies did not circulate locally and suggest contacts, possibly trade relations, between Caesarea and Constantinople in that period. One or two of these coins amounted to the annual salary of a simple farmer so whoever deposited the treasure was wealthy or involved in trading.
