A Late Bronze Age Canaanite Merchant’s Hoard of Gold Artifacts and Hematite Weights from the Yavneh-Yam Anchorage, Israel

An underwater survey at the ancient anchorage of Yavneh-Yam, located on the southern Mediterranean coast of Israel, has revealed remnants of a sunken cargo dated to the Late Bronze Age. The cargo includes a small collection of objects composed of whole and broken down gold jewelry and scrap, in addition to a collection of small stone weights suggesting that it was the stock-in-trade of a Canaanite merchant that plied the eastern Mediterranean waters. The gold and the weights appear to represent means of payment that were commonly known and in use throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages in the southern Levant.

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