As reported by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) earlier this month, in February a group of boys on a school field trip discovered an almost 1,600-year-old gold coin from the Byzantine Empire in a park just north of Nazareth in the region of Galilee.

Minted in the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) capital of Constantinople (modern Istanbul), the gold solidus was struck around 420 to 423 CE and features the emperor Theodosius II on the obverse. Victoria, the personification of victory, holds a staff of the cross on the reverse. Becoming emperor at the age of seven, Theodosius was born in 401 and died in 450. He is perhaps most famous for the Theodosian Code, or Codex Theodosianus, which codified and compiled the corpus of Roman law established since 312. It was published in its complete form in 438.

One notable effect of the Codex was that it gave Jews an inferior legal status within the Empire, preventing them from serving in the armed forces or joining the civil service and prohibiting the construction of new synagogues. The Codex also effectively eliminated the Nasi, or “president”, of the Great Sanhedrin by diverting native Jewish payments from the Sanhedrin to Imperial coffers. The Sanhedrin itself would dissolve shortly thereafter.

This makes the discovery of this gold coin–which, according to Dr. Gabriela “Gabi” Bichovsky, a numismatist with the IAA, is “the first time a coin of this kind has been discovered in the Land of Israel,”–somewhat ironic, as it happened in the one-time regional capital and the governing seat of the Sanhedrin itself, along a new hiking trail dedicated to the Sanhedrin.

The four ninth-grade students who found the solidus (Ido Kadosh, Ofir Siegel, Dotan Miller, and Harel Green) are from Kibbutz Yifat. The boys first showed the coin to their history teacher, Zohar Porshyan, who notified the IAA of the discovery. The young men then showed IAA archaeologist Nir Distelfeld where the gold solidus had been located. All four students received a Certificate of Good Citizenship for finding and reporting the historical treasure.

“It is uncommon to find single gold coins as they were very valuable,” said Distelfeld, who serves as an anti-theft inspector with the Antiquities Authority. The coin is now in the possession of the State Treasury.

Quoted:The coin is now in the possession of the State Treasury.

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Something's not kosher with this story. (??) How do you just take a walk through the park and just happen to kick off a little bit of sand from a 1600 year old coin to magically discover it?

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Something's not kosher with this story. (??) How do you just take a walk through the park and just happen to kick off a little bit of sand from a 1600 year old coin to magically discover it?

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Sure wish I had a certificate suitable for framing instead of this stupid gold coin said no one ever.

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They should be rewarded with equal cash value shares of the value of that coin.  That would be RIGHT.

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Did Spain claim it yet?

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Something's not kosher with this story. (??) How do you just take a walk through the park and just happen to kick off a little bit of sand from a 1600 year old coin to magically discover it?

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I've walked around historical sites in that part of the world, and there are pottery shards everywhere. Every one of them as old as that coin, or even older.  Even the occasional peice of roman glasd.  Seriously, we found hundreds in a day.  Took a look at them, and then threw them back on the ground

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What coin?

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Something's not kosher with this story. (??) How do you just take a walk through the park and just happen to kick off a little bit of sand from a 1600 year old coin to magically discover it?

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The details on that coin are awfully sharp for a soft metal sitting in the dirt for 1,600 years.

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What is the FMV of that coin?

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Something's not kosher with this story. (??) How do you just take a walk through the park and just happen to kick off a little bit of sand from a 1600 year old coin to magically discover it?

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Did Spain claim it yet?

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The difference is broken pottery is worthless, and people who find it throw it back on the ground like you did.  Nobody picks up a gold coin and throws it back.  That coin was worth a months wages for laborers or soldiers for most of history.

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I've walked around historical sites in that part of the world, and there are pottery shards everywhere. Every one of them as old as that coin, or even older.  Even the occasional peice of roman glasd.  Seriously, we found hundreds in a day.  Took a look at them, and then threw them back on the ground

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The difference is broken pottery is worthless, and people who find it throw it back on the ground like you did.  Nobody picks up a gold coin and throws it back.  That coin was worth a months wages for laborers or soldiers for most of history.

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They should be rewarded with equal cash value shares of the value of that coin.  That would be RIGHT.

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When Jesus kicked the ass of the money changers in the tabernacle, think about what they were doing, exchanging foreign currency. I forget the verse in Deuteronomy but they were actually commanded by God to sell their animals and then buy in Jerusalem if the journey was too far (you couldn't be mitt romney and tie up a cage to the top of your car and go driving at 70mph back then). This makes sense though because God's Word has always been revealed to all people

In Deuteronomy 28:10 God makes it clear that even in the old testament, when the physical nation of Israel was his chosen people, ALL other people of the earth knew about it. Even in the old testament, people from everywhere were getting saved, and instead of getting baptized and going to church to show obedience, they would come do sacrifices in Jerusalem and have to change out their money (which was perfectly fine, it just wasn't supposed to happen IN the tabernacle). Some of the more devout ones even became Jews. One of the 12 spies, Caleb was a Kenizzite and not even racially Jewish.  It would make sense that these activities could have continued until 400 AD if the Gospel hadn't reached some of them yet.