Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
The famous British Museum possesses an ancient gold coin that until now was apparently the only one of its kind known in the world - a coin that bears the image of Emperor Augustus and was minted by Emperor Trajan. This coin, from 107 CE, was part of a series of nostalgic coins that Emperor Trajan minted and dedicated to the Roman emperors that ruled before him.
A surprising random discovery by Laurie Rimon, a member of Kibbutz Kfar Blum, who was hiking with friends in the countryside, uncovered the "identical twin brother" of this rare coin - the second such coin of its kind now known to exist...
Here is the link for the rest of the story.
http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/IsraelExperience/History/Pages/Israeli-hiker-finds-rare-2000-year-old-gold-coin-14-Mar-2016.aspx
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The wreck of the nau Esmeralda, a Portuguese East Indiaman and one of Vasco a Gama's ships was found. It sank in 1503. Recovered artifacts include a disc bearing the Portuguese royal coat of arms and the emblem of King Dom Manuel I, an inscribed bronze bell, a gold cruzadocoins that was minted in Lisbon between 1494 and 1501, an Indio, and an extremely rare silver coin struck specifically for trade with India along with many shot, breech chambers and firearms.
You can read more about that in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. The article provides a lot of detailed material on the wreck site and artifacts. You'll enjoy reading it.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1095-9270.12175/epdf
Among the finds shown in that article are the following iron core lead shot.
I'd challenge you to correctly identify that from your detector readout. This lead shot had an iron core. The example at the upper left still contains the iron core. The others have lost the iron core.
The more rare an interesting items are the least likely to be correctly identified.
And above is one of the breech chambers found on the site.
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I haven't been able to get out to the beach for two or three weeks now. It has been a tough year so far with family illness etc. Hopefully things will become more normal before long.
There were a lot of posts that received a lot of attention in February, but the most read post was the post on proposed Florida laws and citizens archaeology permit. See
The most Google Plused post was the post illustrating how artifacts always have a story behind them. See
There were many other widely read posts last month. Remember, you can always use the search box on the blog to find particular topics.
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Expect another day or two of smooth surf, then Friday the surf will begin to increase a little.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
