A hoard of 44 gold coins about 1,400 years old was discovered in Banias
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A cache of 44 pure coins was recently discovered at the Banias site in the Nahal Hermon Nature Reserve, in an excavation by the Antiquities Authority, which is currently being managed with funding from the Electric Company. The excavation is being conducted in preparation for connecting the Makam Nabi Khader site, sacred to the Druze, to the electricity grid.
The coins found may testify to a wealthy man who hid his large amount of money during a period of political uncertainty, after the fall of Phocas, Emperor of Byzantium and the rise of Emperor Heraclius, who lost his grip on the Land of Israel during his tenure at the hands of the Umayyad House of the Muslim Empire.
The ancient city of Nias, where the coins and other tools were found, was largely destroyed, after being sacred to the Canaanites in ancient times, it was ruled by the Romans, the Crusader Byzantines, the Muslims and the Mamluks, until it was abandoned and became a pilgrimage center for Christians for a short period.
Dr. Gabriela Bichovski, a coin expert at the Antiquities Authority who examined the hoard, determined that it contained several coins of the Emperor Phokas. The emperor ruled the Byzantine Empire, including the Land of Israel in the years 602-610 AD after a military coup in Byzantium and was considered cruel and irresponsible, who also must the Jews to be baptized into Christianity, and was finally overthrown and executed by Heraclius, who reigned under him.
Many other coins found were minted by the emperor Heraclius, the ruler of the empire in 610-641 AD, who lost his grip on the Land of Israel during Byzantium’s rule, all the coins are of the value of a solidus, the currency common in the late Roman Empire and Byzantium, which was worth 1,000 denarius, silver coins. The latest coins of Heraclius date the hoard to the days of the Arab occupation.
Read the full article on the Devar news site