44 gold coins hidden during Arab conquest of Israel found in country’s north
About 1,400 years ago, as soldiers of the Umayyad Caliphate swept over the land of Israel, somebody in the ancient settlement in northern Israel now called Banias stuffed a cache of gold coins into the foundation of a wall.
The hider presumably intended to return and reclaim the treasure after the war. Apparently, their story did not end well, says Yoav Lehrer of the Israel Antiquities Authority. Only now has the precious hoard been found – technically about three weeks ago.
The money was uncovered during a salvage excavation of the Paneas, renamed Banias, which is today within the Hermon River Nature Preserve in northern Israel. During the Second Temple period, Banias, which arose around a natural spring, was the most important city in the region.
As happens time and again in the history-riddled Holy Land, the coins were discovered pursuant to infrastructure works, in this case to connect Maqam Nabi Khadr, a site sacred to the Druze sect, to the national grid.
The cache includes 44 solid gold coins weighing 170 grams in total, the archaeologists report. One can almost feel the hider concealing the treasure in terror, Lehrer says. The collection includes some coins struck during the reign of the Eastern Roman Emperor Phocas (aka Phokas), who rose from being a mere centurion (and a rebellious one at that) to the height of power in the year 602 C.E. Known for his loathing of some of the Christians and all of the Jews, he only ruled until 610, when he was executed by Heraclius the Elder of Carthage, who would become the next emperor.
Heraclius would last longer on the throne, from 610 to 641 C.E., and the stash now found hidden by a wall in northern Israel has plenty of coins from his realm, too. The latest of the Heraclian coins date the cache to the Arab conquest period, says Gabriela Bichovsky, an expert numismatist at the IAA.
“What is particularly interesting about them is that early in the emperor’s reign, you see only his image on the coin, but soon images of his family members join him,” Bichovsky says. “You can actually see his sons’ growth process on the coins, from childhood until they appear on the coin at the same height as their father, who is depicted with a long beard.”
Sacred for thousands of years
The area of the Banias, now a nature preserve under the management of the Parks and Nature Authority, has been inhabited since time immemorial. During the early historic period the Canaanites built a shrine there, apparently to Ba’al. The sacred nature of the site would be preserved over the ages: The very name Banias is a derivation from its original name “Paneas,” in honor of the god Pan.
Worshiped around the Mediterranean basin for thousands of years, the cult of Pan established its presence in northern Israel, and inside a cave at the Banias, at least during the Hellenistic period, if not before, archaeologists suggest.
In 2020 archaeologists reported finding an altar in the Banias with a scribbled, rather poorly fashioned inscription in Greek (the lingua franca of the time). The inscription reads, “Atheneon son of Sosipatros of Antioch is dedicating the altar to the god Pan Heliopolitanos. He built the altar using his own personal money pursuant to a vow he made.” We do not know what vow Atheneon son of Sosipatros actually made.
In fact, archaeologists assure that the name Pan Heliopolitanus refers to Zeus amalgamated with Pan, with the merged name reflecting a merged aspect of the two gods. In and of itself, the inscription highlights the lofty status of the Banias shrine in the Roman period: The devotee claims to have come all the way from southern-central Turkey.
And how was the altar found? Not in the temple to Pan, but during excavation of the Byzantine church found at Banias in 2020. The church dates to the early 5th century and the altar to Pan was repurposed as a brick in the Byzantine wall, whether to disrespect the preceding pagans or as a matter of pragmatism. To the archaeologists excavating the site, the altar to the caprine deity stood out like a sore thumb in the wall, which was made of small simple stones among which there was the one great big one.
The Byzantine church itself featured the usual ornamentation, including a rich mosaic floor and a stone engraved with multiple crosses, which could indicate that Banias had become a pilgrimage destination; archaeologists think the crosses may have been incised by visitors, not created as an artistic statement.
In fact, the “Caesarea-Philippi” church had been erected atop the shrine to Pan, which could also be taken as a symbol of superseding the ancient religion or as a “continuity of holiness” – it is not rare in human history for a sacred site to be repurposed by a sequence of religions. Some even posit that the church marks the spot where, according to tradition, Jesus reportedly gave Simon-Yona, aka his chief apostle Peter (“the rock”), keys to the kingdom of heaven:
“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” – Matthew 16:19
The church seems to have been badly damaged in one of the major earthquakes to hit Israel in the eighth century, sitting as Israel does right on top of a vast fault stretching from Mozambique in Africa to Syria and beyond.
Over a thousand years later, in 1099, the Crusaders would come to the Holy Land, and would reach Banias in the year 1129. The Crusaders heavily fortified the town, intending for it to serve as a base from which to take Damascus. But they lost it to Muslim forces in 1132 – just three years after they had come to the city and set about protecting it, adding a city wall and towers, to no avail.
The city would then change hands between the Crusaders and Muslim forces a few times, in fact. Later, in the year 1260, it would be conquered by the Mongols – whose forces reached as far south as Gaza, albeit not for long. It would promptly fall again, to the Mamluks, riding out of Egypt. Today the Banias is mainly famed for its beauty rather than any persisting whiff of sanctification.
