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A hoard of ancient silver coins has been recently discovered on a small island in the Mediterranean Sea, officials said this week. The treasure dates back more than 2,000 years, and is estimated to have originated between 94 B.C. and 74 B.C.
Archaeologists found the coins “hidden in a hole in the wall” while carrying out restoration work at the Acropolis of Santa Teresa and San Marco, a historic monument on the island of Pantelleria off the southern coast of Italy, between Sicily and Tunisia, the island's regional heritage office announced Monday.
There were 27 of them, each one marked as a denarius – the main silver coin used in ancient Rome for centuries after its introduction around 200 BC.
Officials said the team, led by Thomas Schaefer of the University of Tübingen in Germany, initially discovered some of the coins by chance in soil loosened by heavy rains. They then dug under a rock to uncover the rest of the treasure. The coins were cleaned and restored before the announcement was made on the Facebook page of the archaeological park that includes Pantelleria and two other sites on mainland Sicily, the Cave di Cusa and Selinunte.
Coins were minted during the Roman Republic, which It was there For about 500 years until the founding of Roman Empire In 27 BC
The latest discovery comes after another hoard of the same collection of Roman silver coins, dating to roughly the same time period, was discovered at the same site in Pantelleria in 2010. Officials said the initial hoard included 107 coins. A few years earlier, excavations near the sites had uncovered three marble sculptures depicting the heads of former Roman emperors Julius Caesar and Titus Flavius ​​Vespasian, as well as Agrippinaan empress and prominent female figure in ancient Rome. The sculptures have been displayed at the Salinas Museum in Palermo as well as at the British Museum in London.
Officials said the latest discovery in Pantelleria is of great value to archaeologists and historians in the region because it contributes to their understanding of the Roman Republic, how it was structured, and what politics and trade were like in the Mediterranean at the time.
Schaefer suggested that the treasure may have ended up where his team found it after it was deliberately hidden during a pirate invasion of the island, which happened frequently in ancient times. The archaeologist said it was likely that the treasure was buried at the time and never found because much of the acropolis remained untouched for centuries.
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