An impressive gold coin bearing the likeness of the 19th-century French ruler Napoleon was discovered during archaeological excavations by the Israel Antiquities Authority in (Yafo) Jaffa, prior to infrastructure work there by the local mass transit company.
The ten-franc coin was minted in Paris in 1856, at the time of the Second French Empire, and is made of almost completely pure gold (93 percent).
The image appearing on the obverse is that of Louis Napoleon III. In 1848 Napoleon III was elected president of the Second Republic and following a coup d’état in 1852 he appointed himself Empereur des Francais – like his famous uncle, Napoleon Bonaparte.
According to Robert Kool, a numismatist with the Israel Antiquities Authority, “the discovery of gold coins during archaeological excavations is a rare occurrence. This is the first time that such a coin was found in an excavation in Yafo.
“However," Kool said, "we know that European gold coins were common in the Ottoman Empire, which suffered a severe financial crisis in the late nineteenth century. Documents and coins that were found in the past in Tel Aviv and Be’er Sheva attest to the popularity of European gold, especially in remote provinces like Palestine, until the end of the First World War."
The excavation, on Kaufman Street, which ended last week, also uncovered the foundations of buildings from the Late Ottoman period, coins from different periods and fragments of pottery vessels dating from the time of the Bible until the Late Ottoman period.