(ETH) – Some young people in Israel have just unearthed hundreds of gold coins that were stashed away in a clay vessel for more than a thousand years.

The report states that the treasure was discovered on Aug. 18th, by teenagers that were volunteering at an excavation in central Israel where a new neighborhood is planned to be built according to Reuters.  “The person who buried this treasure 1,100 years ago must have expected to retrieve it and even secured the vessel with a nail so that it would not move.

We can only guess what prevented him from returning to collect this treasure,” said excavation director Liat Nadav-Ziv. The area in which the coins were discovered was in housed workshops and the treasure was hidden. The identity of the owner is still a mystery.

“It was amazing,” said Oz Cohen, one of the volunteers who found the treasure. “I dug in the ground and when I excavated the soil, saw what looked like very thin leaves. When I looked again I saw these were gold coins. It was really exciting to find such a special and ancient treasure.”