The rare find was discovered in excavations as part of a project of the Jewish Quarter Development Company to build an elevator, which will make the Western Wall plaza accessible • "We found an ancient savings bank"
Gold coins
Photography:
Dafna Gazit, Israel Antiquities Authority
Jerusalem of gold: A
small pottery urn containing four thousand-year-old gold coins was uncovered in archeological excavations by the Israel Antiquities Authority at a site where an elevator is being built to make the Western Wall accessible.
Archaeologist from the Israel Antiquities Authority, David Gelman: "It seems that we found an ancient savings bank."
The rare find was discovered in excavations as part of a project of the Jewish Quarter Development Company to build an elevator, which will make the Western Wall plaza accessible to visitors to the Jewish Quarter.
A jug (a small pottery urn) containing four pure gold coins more than a thousand years old, which is estimated to belong to the Early Islamic period, was discovered in the excavations.
The jug was found by the inspector of the Israel Antiquities Authority, Yevgenia Kapil, during preliminary work carried out at the site during the holidays.
A month later, when the director of the excavation, archaeologist David Gelman, reviewed the findings, he emptied the jug of software and washed it.
"Surprisingly," says Gelman, "along with the sand, four glittering gold coins were washed into my hands. This is the first time I, as an archaeologist, have discovered gold and the excitement is immense. It seems that you have turned Moshe into an ancient savings bank."
Dr. Robert Cole, a coin expert at the Antiquities Authority, noted: “The coins were preserved in excellent condition and could be read immediately upon their revolutionary issuance, even without being cleaned.
The coins date to a fairly short period, between the late 1940s and 1970s.
This is a time of great political change as control of Israel shifts from the Sunni Abbasid caliphate, which sits in Baghdad, Iraq, to its Shiite rivals, the Fatimid dynasty of North Africa, which in those days conquered Egypt, Syria and Israel.
These historical events are reflected almost perfectly in the distribution of the coins discovered in the jug: two gold dinars were minted in Ramla, under the rule of the Caliph Matia (946 - 974 CE) and the governor on his behalf, Abu al-Qassem ibn al-Ihshid Onuhar (946 - 961 CE).
The other two, drowned in Cairo, by the Fatimid rulers al-Ma'az (953 - 975 CE), and his successor - al-Aziz (975 - 996 CE).
Dr. Cole added: "This is the first time in fifty years that a gold treasure from the Fatimid period has been discovered in an ancient city in Jerusalem.
In the large excavations conducted by Prof. Benjamin Mazar in the Old City after the Six Day War, five caches of coins and jewelry from the period, south of the Temple Mount, were discovered.
Four dinars was a considerable sum of money for the majority of the population, living in those days in basic living conditions.
This amount was equal to the monthly salary of a junior clerk or to four months' salary of a simple manual worker.
Compared to the average person at the time, a small handful of wealthy officials and merchants had huge fortunes and salaries.
"A senior official in the Ministry of Finance could then earn about 7,000 gold dinars a month, and there were those whose income tax on rural estates amounted to hundreds of thousands of gold dinars a year."
Herzl Ben-Ari, CEO of the Jewish Quarter Development Company, who happened to be at the site of the excavations while finding the coins, said: "Although we are accustomed to archeological exposures from time to time, it is always a great excitement to discover Jerusalem's special and tumultuous past. To allow exposure of extensive parts of the archeological finds to the visiting public. "