Jerusalem—Israeli archaeologists discovered a stash of seven gold coins dating back to 1,200 years ago, the Israel Antiquities Authority reported on Sunday.
The coins, from the early Islamic period, were discovered in a broken clay juglet during excavations in the city of Yavne in central Israel.
The archaeologists suggest that the shiny treasure may have been a potter’s personal “piggy bank.”
The excavation revealed a wide industrial area that had been active for centuries.
One of the coins is the gold dinar of the Caliph Harun al-Rashid (ruling between 786-809 AD), on whom the popular story “Arabian Nights” also known as “One Thousand and One Nights” was based.
According to archaeologists, “these gold dinars were issued by the Aghlabid dynasty that ruled in North Africa, in the region of modern Tunisia, on behalf of the Abbasid Caliphate centered in Baghdad.”
The large-scale excavation revealed an unusually large amount of pottery kilns that were active at the end of the Byzantine and beginning of the early Islamic period (AD 7-9th centuries).
