[사진 = 알리칸테 대학교 홈페이지 캡처]Two amateur divers cleaning up trash off the eastern coast of Spain discovered a pile of Roman gold coins from 1500 years ago.
According to CNN and the Daily Mail on the 23rd (local time), Luis Lence and Cesar Jimeno, who visited the coast of Javia Portizol Bay, Alicante, Spain on the 24th of last month, discovered a total of 53 Roman gold coins while cleaning up underwater garbage.
At first, they found a gold coin about 7 meters from the beach, but after realizing that it was a treasure, they started a full-scale search. Afterwards, I found 7 and 45 more gold coins.
The two divers who found the gold coin told local media, “I found something that looked like a 10 cent coin, but it was in a small hole.” .
Sensing that the gold coin was a lost treasure, they returned to the scene and searched for the remaining treasures for about two hours using a cork stopper and a Swiss army knife to find the remaining gold coins. They donated the gold coins they found to the University of Alicante, Spain.
Researchers at the Institute of Archaeological and Historical Heritage at the University of Alicande estimated that these gold coins were minted in the late 4th or early 5th centuries. So far, three gold coins of Roman Emperor Valentinian I, 7 gold coins of Valentinian II, 15 gold coins of Theodosius I, 17 gold coins of Arcadius, and 10 gold coins of Honorius have been identified. However, it was not known when the remaining gold coin was minted.
Researchers are weighing the possibility that the gold coins were voluntarily hid by the Romans when the barbarians arrived on the coast of Hispania (now Spain) around 1500. In addition, it was expected that it would be a valuable source of information about the circumstances surrounding the fall of the Roman Empire.
Jaime Molina Vidal, a history professor at the University of Alicante, said, “It is one of the largest heaps of Roman gold coins found in Europe and Spain. “It’s an unusual discovery,” he said.
After restoration work, the gold coins will be displayed in a local museum, and further exploration will be carried out with the support of 17,800 euros (about 24.62 million won) from the local government of Valencia.
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