Israeli archaeologists find treasures in ancient shipwrecks

JERUSALEM — The Israel Antiquities Authority announced Wednesday the find of remnants of 2 shipwrecks disconnected the Mediterranean coast, replete with a sunken trove of hundreds Roman and medieval metallic coins.

The finds made adjacent the past metropolis of Caesarea were dated to the Roman and Mamluk periods, astir 1,700 and 600 years ago, archaeologists said. They see hundreds of Roman metallic and bronze coins dating to the mid-third century, arsenic good arsenic much than 500 metallic coins from the Middle Ages recovered amid the sediment.

They were recovered during an underwater survey conducted by the IAA’s Marine Archaeology Unit successful the past 2 months, said Jacob Sharvit, caput of the unit.

Among the different artifacts recovered from the tract adjacent the past metropolis of Caesarea were figurines, bells, ceramics, and metallic artifacts that erstwhile belonged to the ships, specified arsenic nails and a shattered robust anchor.

The IAA made its announcement conscionable days up of Christmas, and underscored the find of a Roman golden ring, its greenish gemstone carved with the fig of a shepherd carrying a sheep connected his shoulders.

Robert Cole, caput of the authority’s coin department, called the point “exceptional.”

“On the gemstone is engraved an representation of the ‘Good Shepherd,’ which is truly 1 of the earliest symbols of Christianity,” helium said.

Sharvit said that the Roman vessel is believed to person primitively hailed from Italy, based connected the benignant of immoderate of the artifacts. He said it remained unclear whether immoderate remnants of the woody ships remained intact beneath the sands.