(photo by Shai Halevi/IAA via Ashernet)
A small pottery jar containing four pure gold coins dating from the Early Islamic period was unearthed during archeological excavations conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), as part of the Jewish Quarter Development Corporation’s plan to build an elevator and make the Western Wall Plaza more accessible. The jar was found by IAA inspector Yevgenia Kapil and, some weeks later, excavation director David Gellman found the coins inside it. “To my great surprise, along with the soil, four shiny gold coins fell into my hand,” said Gellman. “This is the first time in my archeological career that I have discovered gold, and it is tremendously exciting.”
According to IAA coin expert Dr. Robert Kool, “The coins date from a relatively brief period, from the late 940s to the 970s CE. This was a time of radical political change, when control over Eretz Israel passed from the Sunni Abbasid caliphate, whose capital was Baghdad, Iraq, into the hands of its Shiite rivals, the Fatimid dynasty of North Africa, who conquered Egypt, Syria and Eretz Israel in those years.”
According to Kool, “Four dinars was a considerable sum of money for most of the population, who lived under difficult conditions at the time. It was equal to the monthly salary of a minor official, or four months’ salary for a common labourer. Compared with these people, the small handful of wealthy officials and merchants in the city earned huge salaries and amassed vast wealth. A senior treasury official could earn 7,000 gold dinars a month and receive additional incomes from his rural estates amounting to hundreds of thousands of gold dinars a year.”