Many thanks to Rhio for the link. With a photo of, as he says, the very beautiful coin.
A rare gold coin dating back 2,200 years was discovered by a combined university research team in Israel, a top Israeli antiquities official said Thursday.
Dr. Donald T. Ariel, head of the Coin Department of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), said the coin ranked in the top five of the rarest finds in that country's history.
"Intrinsically, for coin research, it's a very exciting find," Ariel told CNN. "This is an amazing numismatic find. The coin is beautiful and in excellent preservation. It is the heaviest gold coin with the highest contemporary value of any coin ever found in an excavation in Israel."
Ariel said the coin weighs almost one ounce (27.71 grams), while most ancient gold coins weighed about 4.5 grams. It was minted in Alexandria, Egypt, by Ptolemy V and dates to 191 BCE. It is only the second gold Ptolemaic coin ever found in Israel.
The obverse, or 'head' of the coin, portrays Queen Arsinoe II Philadelphus.
Bikyamasr
After more than 2,000 years, a gold coin dated to 191 BC was uncovered in Northern Israel, the country’s antiquities authority said in a statement on Wednesday.
“The coin is beautiful and in excellent preservation. It is the heaviest gold coin with the highest contemporary value of any coin ever found in an excavation in Israel,” said Donald T. Ariel, head of the authority’s coin department, in a statement.
It is a small piece of ancient money, weighing only one ounce, but the authority said that is nearly 6 times as heavy as usual finds from the period.
According to Ariel, the coin was created in Alexandria, during the rule of Ptolemy V and has the name of Ptolemy II’s wife, Arsinoe Philadephus.
According to the authority, the coin was unearthed near the Lebanese border by a team of American archaeologists from the University of Michigan and the University of Minnesota at Tel Kedesh.
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