A small jar containing 24 rare gold coins and a gold earring was recently found in the Mediterranean port of Caesarea in northern Israel.

On December 3, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced that it had discovered 24 coins and a gold earring hidden inside a small bronze jar dating back 900 years ago.

900 year old pot of gold discovered in Israel

According to experts, the item was found between two stones above a well in a house in the town of Caesarea, northern Israel, and is dated to about 900 years old, during the Abbasid and Fatimid periods.

Archaeologist Peter Gendelman believes that the jar of gold coins is related to the Crusade of 1101, the most disastrous event in medieval Caesarea history when most of the city’s residents were massacred.

Meanwhile, IAA coin expert Robert Kool said that the owner of the fortune at that time was most likely a merchant or wealthy person. Because one of the two coins in this jar of gold coins is equivalent to the annual income of a farmer at the end of the 11th century.

One of these two gold coins is equal to the annual income of farmers at the end of the 11th century

Historically, Caesarea has been invaded many times, including by the Roman empire and the Byzantine empire. Archaeologists believe that the pot of gold was hidden when invaders ransacked the city, 900 years ago. When the massacre occurred, the treasure owner may have died or been sold into slavery and could not return to retrieve the pot of gold coins.