Crusader-era Gold found off coast in Northern Israel

Thirty 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 sits on Israel’s Mediterranean coast, just 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 golden coins showed that the ship likely sailed later than that. The coins were golden florins, minted in Florence, Italy, starting in 1252. The ship must have sailed sometime in the last half of the 13th century.

Crusader Fortress : Old City of Acre – Northern Israel

At the siege of Acre, as Christians made a desperate attempt to flee the city, the knights made their doomed last stand. As the Mamluks of Egyptian sultan Al-Ashraf Khalil were digging tunnels to get inside, 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.