Israeli Cave Explorers Find Treasure Haul So Valuable, Authorities Won't Say Where So That It Doesn't Get Looted

It's considered so valuable, Israel’s Antiquities Authority won’t reveal where the vast trove was discovered in order to prevent thieves from nabbing some of its contents.

Three amateur cave explorers investigating a stalactite cave in northern Israel instead stumbled upon a huge treasure of silver and bronze coins believed to have been hidden 2,300 years ago.

The Israeli Antiquities Authority on Monday called the find “one of the most important discoveries to come to light in the north of the country in recent years, and will require much time to study in order to crack the secrets of the cave.”

Amateur explorers came upon silver and bronze items in a northern Israeli cave (Photo: Clara Amit/Israel Antiques Authority)

Israeli Caving Club members Reuven Zakai, his son Chen, and Lior Halony said they made the discovery when they were exploring the narrow passages of the cave and noticed a shining object.

Besides coins, the men also found silver bracelets, earrings, signet rings and agate beads.

Two silver coins featured the image of Alexander the Great, who ruled the area during the fourth century B.C.

“You find here and there pieces of pottery and such, but a trove on a level like this where someone hid all their valuables — it was elating,” Reuven Zakai told the Times of Israel.

Antiquities Authority spokeswoman Yoli Shwartz told the Jerusalem Post she wold not share the location of the cave so as not to encourage the theft of objects not yet retrieved from the site.

“They look brand-new, like they were just bought,” said Dr. Eitan Klein, deputy director of the authority’s Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery.

Klein said the location of the find indicates how valuable the original owners believed the items to be.

“These items were valuable to these people. They didn’t make an effort, enter an inaccessible cave, crawl deep inside and hide it in a hard-to-reach fissure for nothing,” Klein said.

One of the coins bearing the image of Alexander the Great. (Photo: Samuel Magal/Israel Antiques Authority)

Pottery remnants were also found embedded in the stalagmites, including some so tightly attached, they couldn't be extracted.

“The combination of a stalactite cave and archeological finds is both fascinating and rare,” Klein said. “The finds in the cave will allow the researchers – archeologists and geologists alike – to accurately date both the archeological finds and the process of stalactite development.”

The Jerusalem Post reported:

After analyzing the findings in the authority’s laboratory, researchers determined that some of the artifacts date back to the Chalcolithic, or Copper, period 6,000 years ago, the Early Bronze Age 5,000 years ago, the Biblical period 3,000 years ago and the Hellenistic period, approximately 2,300 years ago.

Israeli officials commended the men for their “exemplary civic behavior” by reporting the archaeological find.