Crusader-era gold found off coast in Northern Israel

The coins are gold florins, minted in Florence, Italy, starting in 1252. The ship must have sailed in the last half of the 13th century.

In 2017 30 gold coins were found amid the remains of a Crusader-era shipwreck discovered off the coast of Acre in northern Israel. The city of Acre is on Israel’s Mediterranean coast, north of Haifa. In the 13th century it was one of the most important strongholds left to European Crusaders in the Holy Land. Archaeologists dated the shipwreck's wood to 1250 A.D. But the gold coins showed that the ship likely sailed later than that.

Crusader Fortress : Old City of Acre – Northern Israel

At the siege of Acre, as Christian citizens made a desperate attempt to flee the city, the knights made their doomed last stand. The Mamluks of Egyptian sultan Al-Ashraf Khalil dug tunnels and the castle’s foundation collapsed, burying the doomed Templars. The sultan’s flag soon flew over Acre, and the Egyptian forces systematically dismantled the Crusader city, leaving its seaport in ruin.