Monday, September 9, 2013

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL—A cache of treasures dating to the seventh century has been unearthed in Jerusalem’s Old City, some 50 yards from the area known to Jews as Temple Mount. The 36 gold coins; a gold medallion adorned with images of a menorah, a shofar, and a Torah scroll; and gold and silver jewelry may have been buried for safekeeping during the Persian conquest of the city in A.D. 614. The artifacts are “a breathtaking, once-in-a-lifetime discovery,” said Eilat Mazar of Hebrew University.