![]() “There are no remains of sunken ships in the area where they were found,” says Molina. ![]() “Sets of gold coins are not common,” says Jaime Molina, head of the excavation and a professor of ancient history at UA, which has been conducting surveys for three years in the bay of Portitxol, “where the ships from the Baetica stopped before leaving for the Balearic Islands on their way to Rome.” Even less common are coins found in such a “perfect state of preservation.” The team led by Molina has been able to identify and associate the coins to the Roman emperors Valentinian I (three coins), Valentinian II (seven), Theodosius I (15), Arcadius (17) and Honorius (10). Some of the gold coins found on the seabed of the bay of Xàbia. “It’s incredible, it’s every child’s dream to find a treasure,” says Lens. Altogether, they extracted 53 coins from the seabed, three nails that are probably made of copper as well as deteriorated lead remains that seem to be part of a chest that would have originally contained the coins, as described by the UA. “We took the eight coins we had found and put them in a glass jar with some sea water,” says Lens, who subsequently returned three times to the site with his brother-in-law and specialists in underwater archaeology from the city of Xàbia, the University of Alicante (UA) and the Spanish Civil Guard. According to experts, it has turned out to be one of the largest collections of its kind in Europe.Īfter consulting with their families, Lens and Gimeno decided to report the discovery to the local authorities the following day. Lens and Gimeno went back down to the site and, “using the corkscrew on a small Swiss Army knife from the boat,” spent two hours unearthing more coins “embedded in a rock crevice.” In all, the space contained a treasure trove consisting of 53 gold coins dating between the 4th and 5th centuries, when the Western Roman Empire was in decline. When he came aboard, he cleaned it and discovered “an ancient image, like a Greek or Roman face,” and thought it had come off a piece of jewelry. “It was in a small hole, like a bottleneck,” he says. On August 23, a flash on a rock at a depth of about seven meters in the bay of Portitxol made Lens think he had found “what looked like a 10-cent coin.”īefore returning to the boat, Lens decided to retrieve the coin. Their only aim is to enjoy the underwater scenery and “ clean up the garbage” they find as they do. The two men spend their days snorkeling and free diving “with technical equipment worth €10, consisting of swimsuit, masks, snorkels and flippers,” jokes Lens. ![]() Underwater archaeologists from Alicante University searching the area where two amateur divers found Roman coins Universidad de AlicanteĮvery summer, the brothers-in-law Luis Lens and César Gimeno and their respective families spend their vacations in Xàbia, a popular tourist resort on Spain’s Mediterranean coast. ![]()
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