Coins of Bohemian origin found in medieval Palestine

A Prague origin of the half-denier can be inferred from the fact that the main denomination of this type has been foundshortly after the discovery in Caesarea, during the archaeological research at Celetná Street in the Old Town of Prague in 1997.If its dating is correct, the coin bears one of the oldest portrayals of a Bohemian lion (Fig. 2).

The second find of the coin of Bohemian origin was made in 2009 during a salvage excavation in the area of the medieval suburb of Montmusard in ‘Akko (Fig. 3 and 4), conducted by Edna J. Stern on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).Below the massive building dated to the 13thcentury, excavations yielded a spectacular hoard of several hundred marble spolia which seemed to have been buried by its owner prior to the fall of Acre to the Mamluks in May 1291.