29 May 2025 The Future is the Product of the Past

Israeli Archaeologists discover two shipwrecks filled with treasure

Israeli archaeologists have been discovered ancient artifacts and treasures amid the wrecks of two ships on the seafloor off the coast of Caesarea, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) revealed on Wednesday.

The finds made near the ancient city of Caesarea were dated to the Roman and Mamluk periods, around 1,700 and 600 years ago, archaeologists said.

Hundreds of Roman silver and copper coins from the mid-third century, as well as more than 500 Middle Ages silver coins, were discovered among the debris.

According to the authority, the treasure —a gold ring engraved with the figure of the Good Shepherd, a well-known symbol of Jesus in early Christian art, and a bronze figurine in the form of an eagle, symbolizing Roman rule — was found scattered four meters (13 feet) down on the seafloor near the remains of the ships’ wrecked hulls.

A hoard of coins from the Mamluk period discovered off the coast of Caesarea in 2021. Photo; Israel Antiquities Authority.
A hoard of coins from the Mamluk period was discovered off the coast of Caesarea in 2021. Photo; Israel Antiquities Authority.

Other discoveries included a statue of a Roman pantomimus wearing a comic mask, several bronze bells used to fend off bad spirits, and earthenware containers, as well as dozens of big bronze nails, lead pipes from a bilge pump, and a broken massive iron anchor.

Among the items found are a red gemstone engraved with a lyre, and a gold ring with a green gemstone depicting a shepherd boy in a tunic bearing a ram or sheep on his shoulders, the IAA said in the announcement.

A statue of a masked mime discovered by the Israel Antiquities Authority marine archaeology survey off the coast of Caesarea. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg
A statue of a masked mime was discovered by the Israel Antiquities Authority marine archaeology survey off the coast of Caesarea. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg

According to the IAA, the carving on the red stone points to the Hebrew Bible and Greek mythology, as the lyre, “David’s Harp,” appears in the Book of Samuel. Greek myth features “Apollo’s Lyre,” made by the infant Hermes on the morning of his birth, causing Apollo to make him and his mother gods.

The “good shepherd” engraving on the green stone is one of the oldest images used to symbolize Jesus, possibly indicating that the ring’s owner was an early Christian.

A ruby found off the coast of Ceasera.Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg
Ruby was found off the coast of Caesarea.Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg

Robert Cole, head of the authority’s coin department, called the item “exceptional.”

“On the gemstone is engraved an image of the `Good Shepherd,´ which is really one of the earliest symbols of Christianity,” he said.

Caesarea, where it was found, was where Christianity “began to be disseminated across the world,” said the IAA Marine Archeology Unit’s Jacob Sharvit.

A bronze statue of a falcon found in wreaks of a ship off the coast of Ceasera.
A bronze statue of a falcon was found in the wreaks of a ship off the coast of Caesarea.

Sharvit said that the Roman ship is believed to have originally hailed from Italy, based on the style of some of the artifacts. He said it remained unclear whether any remnants of the wooden ships remained intact beneath the sands.

“Israel’s coasts are rich in sites and find that are immensely important national and international cultural heritage assets,” said IAA director Eli Eskozido, adding that they are “extremely vulnerable, which is why the IAA conducts underwater surveys to locate, monitor, and salvage any antiquities.”

“The discovery and documentation of artifacts at their original findspot have tremendous archeological importance, and sometimes even a small find leads to a great discovery,” he stressed.

Cover Photo: A gold ring engraved with the figure of the Good Shepherd was discovered off the coast of Caesarea. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg

Related Articles

Scottish Archaeologists unearth ‘missing’ Aberdeenshire monastery linked to first written Gaelic

19 November 2023

19 November 2023

One of the biggest mysteries in Scottish archaeological history has been solved with the discovery of the monastery site where...

8000-year-old with balcony architectural structure belonging to the Prehistoric period found in Anatolia

31 October 2021

31 October 2021

During the excavations in Domuztepe mound, it was revealed that an architectural structure thought to be 7-8 thousand years old...

The 4,500-year-old Wisconsin canoe was built around the same time that Stonehenge was being constructed

31 May 2024

31 May 2024

Historians from Wisconsin have reported the amazing finding of at least eleven prehistoric canoes in Lake Mendota, which is close...

According to researchers, the bones discovered underneath St. Peter’s Basilica may not be his

5 June 2021

5 June 2021

Three Italian researchers have voiced doubts about whether St. Peter’s bones are buried underneath the Rome basilica that bears his...

Discoveries on the island of Minorca shed light on the history of Roman conquests in the Balearic Islands

31 July 2021

31 July 2021

The University of Alicante Institute for Archeology and Historical Heritage (INAPH) Researchs discovered a collection of buried Roman antiquities going...

The oldest Celtic Dice ever discovered in Poland

24 September 2023

24 September 2023

A dice, probably dating from the 3rd and early 2nd centuries BC, was discovered at the Celtic settlement of Samborowice...

Archaeologists Discovered a New Pyramid Resembling Teotihuacán in Tikal

17 April 2021

17 April 2021

Researchers discovered a new pyramid complex in the Tikal in Guatemala. About 65 km south of El Mirador in the...

A 7,500-year-old settlement has been discovered in Turkey’s Domuztepe Mound

11 September 2021

11 September 2021

During the most recent excavations at Domuztepe Mound in the Türkoğlu district of southern Turkey’s Kahramanmaraş province, a settlement and...

2000-years-old Hercules Rock Relief is being Vandalized

17 February 2024

17 February 2024

The 2000-year-old Hercules Rock Relief, located in Deliktaş, approximately 2.5 kilometers northeast of the Iznik district center of Bursa, is...

Found in Spain a poem by Virgil engraved in a Roman amphora

22 June 2023

22 June 2023

Archaeologists have deciphered a verse by Virgil, the greatest poet of Rome’s Golden Age, carved into the clay of a...

Archaeologists Find the Missing Link of the Alphabet

15 April 2021

15 April 2021

Researchers believe that Tel Lachish pottery is the oldest of its kind found in the region, and could explain how...

Poland’s oldest copper axe discovered in the Lublin region

30 March 2024

30 March 2024

A copper axe from the 4th to 3rd millennium BC identified with the Trypillia culture was found in the Horodło...

Remains of ‘female vampire’ found with sickle across her neck and a padlocked toe in Poland

2 September 2022

2 September 2022

A skeleton of what archaeologists believe may have been a 17th-century female vampire has been discovered near Bydgoszcz in Poland....

The Iremir Mound illuminates the pre-Urartian period in East Van

27 July 2021

27 July 2021

Archaeological findings unearthed in the excavations carried out at the İremir Mound in the Gürpınar district of Van, in eastern...

A 2,100-Year-Old Marble Statue of Mother Goddess Cybele Discovered in Ordu’s Ancient Kurul Castle

7 March 2025

7 March 2025

A breathtaking statue of the Mother Goddess Cybele, dating back 2100 years, was found at the historic Kurul Castle in...