A treasure trove of 2,150-year-old silver coins excavated in the central Israeli city of Modiin apparently belonged to a Jew who had to leave the nearby house but never managed to retrieve his hidden cache.

Excavation director Abraham Tendler said the shekels and half-shekels (tetradrachms and didrachms) were minted in the city of Tyre, now part of Lebanon, and bear the images of the king, Antiochus VII, and his brother Demetrius II.

The finds, discovered prior to the building of a new neighborhood in the city, will be displayed in an archaeological park in the heart of that neighborhood, the Antiquities Authority confirmed.

The discovery of the silver coins provided "compelling evidence that one of the members of the estate who had saved his income for months needed to leave the house for some unknown reason. He buried his money in the hope of coming back and collecting it, but was apparently unfortunate and never returned. It is exciting to think that the coin hoard was waiting here 2,140 years until we exposed it."

Dr. Donald Tzvi Ariel, head of the Coin Department at the antiquities authority, said the cache contained one or two coins from every year between 135 and 126 BCE.

"It seems that some thought went into collecting the coins, and it is possible that the person who buried the cache was a coin collector. He acted in just the same way as stamp and coin collectors manage collections today," he added.

Numerous bronze coins minted by the Hasmonean kings were also discovered in the excavation in addition to the 16 silver ones, the authority reported.

They bear the names of kings such as Yehohanan, Judah, Jonathan or Mattathias and his title: High Priest and Head of the Council of the Jews.

To read the complete article, see:
Cache of Hasmonean-era silver coins uncovered in Modiin (www.timesofisrael.com/cache-of-hasmonean-era-silver-coins-uncovered-in-modiin/)

To read the complete article, see:
Rare Coins from Chashmona'im Period Found in Modi'in Excavation (http://hamodia.com/2016/06/07/rare-coins-chashmonaim-period-found-modiin-excavation/)