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The Crusaders' last stand: Pot of gold worth £300,000 found in
fortress where it was buried by doomed force of Christian knights (Daily Mail)
Gold coins from time of Crusades found in Israeli ruins (Fox News)
fortress where it was buried by doomed force of Christian knights (Daily Mail)
much more at links above and below, with pictures, and a video at DM linkA pot of gold from the Crusades worth up to $500,000 has been found buried in an ancient Roman fortress in Israel.
The coins were buried by Christian soldiers of the order of the Knights Hospitalier as the Crusaders faced an unstoppable attack by a huge Muslim army.
The knights were annihilated in April 1265.
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'The idea was to put something broken in the ground and fill it with sand, in order to hide the gold coins within. If by chance somebody were to find the juglet, he won’t excavate it, he won’t look inside it to find the gold coins. Once we started to sift it, the gold came out,' Prof. Oren Tal said.
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Gold coins from time of Crusades found in Israeli ruins (Fox News)
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“All in all, we found some 108 dinals and quarter dinals, which makes it one of the largest gold coin hauls discovered in a medieval site in the land of Israel,” Prof. Tal said. “They were minted some 250 to 300 years before they were used by the Fatimid knights.”
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The hoard of coins themselves -- found on June 25, 2012, by Mati Johananoff, a student of TAU -- date to the times of the Fatimid empire, which dominated northern Africa and parts of the Middle East at the time.
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The coins are covered in icons and inscriptions: the names and legends of local sultans, Tal said, as well as blessings.
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Tal noted that antique Dinals sell for $3,000 to $5,000 apiece, meaning the stash could be worth closer to half a million.
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