12/26/25 Report - Ancient Gold Coin Cache Found. Silver and Gold Prices Now and Future. Promise and Limitations of AI Tools.

 

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.

A thousand-year-old piggy bank has been discovered in Jerusalem. 

A small jug discovered in the Israeli capital's Jewish Quarter last month turns out to contain four gold coins — the equivalent of four month's salary for a common laborer at the time the coins were tucked away more than 1,000 years ago. 

Archaeologists discovered the hidden loot while surveying a site prior to the construction of an elevator to the Western Wall Plaza, a historic public square in Jerusalem's Old City. Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) inspector Yevgenia Kapil found the juglet, a clay vessel not much bigger than a coffee cup.,,

The coins were exciting not simply because they were gold, but also because they made it easy to determine the age of the treasure cache. They all dated to between the years 940 and 970, according to the IAA...

Here is the link for more about that.

Ancient gold stash found in jug | Watch

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Gold and silver and other metals have been hitting record high prices.

... Markets have been jittery. A Russian general was killed by a car bomb in Moscow on Monday in what is a suspected, but unconfirmed, attack by Ukraine. Separately, the U.S. launched rockets at 70 different Islamic State targets in Syria on Friday.

Futures contracts for gold traded in New York were 1.87% higher, at $4,469.40 a troy ounce, a new record high according to Dow Jones Market Data and surpassing October’s peak of $4,336. It’s been a strong year for gold, up 69% since January, with some could reach$4,900 in 2026....

Here is that link.

Gold and silver prices surge to record highs on Venezuela, Russia tensions. How they can soar in 2026

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... Silver's price will likely continue to see increases in 2026, Joshua D. Glawson, content manager for Money Metals Exchange, says, especially as the demand for other investment vehicles like precious metals exchange-traded funds and bonds increases.

"ETFs are creating more 'demand' than there is actual physical metal above ground. And some countries' governments are now promoting these silver ETFs, which are driving up the price of silver futures and silver spot price," Glawson says. "My prediction, although I cannot tell the future, is that the price of silver is going to continue to rise in 2026."...

Here is the link for more about that.

What is the silver price forecast for 2026?

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AI has become an important research tool.  I've posted several ways that it has been used by detectorists including gathering information about possible detecting sites to identifying finds.  You might remember the post in which Mark G. reported on his use of AI to give him information on a location before his visit.  If you didn't read that, you should Treasure Beaches Report: Pt. 2. (2020 and Beyond). : 6/20/25 Report - Using AI to Prepare for a Metal Detecting Trip to a New Location: A Case Study.) 

It is important to understand both the capabilities offered by AI, but also the limitations.  Here are an excerpt from a good article on why AI couldn't solve a historical research problem.

... I made an important discovery that was published last year: The baptistery was built not by Florentines but for Florentines — specifically, as part of a collaborative effort led by Pope Gregory VII after his election in 1073. My revelation happened just before the explosion of artificial intelligence into public consciousness, and recently I began to wonder: Could a large language model like ChatGPT, with its vast libraries of knowledge, crack the mystery faster than I did?

So as part of a personal experiment, I tried running three A.I. chatbots — ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini — through different aspects of my investigation. I wanted to see if they could spot the same clues I had found, appreciate their importance and reach the same conclusions I eventually did. But the chatbots failed. Though they were able to parse dense texts for information relevant to the baptistery’s origins, they ultimately couldn’t piece together a wholly new idea. They lacked essential qualities for making discoveries.

There are a few reasons for this. Large language models have read more text than any human could ever hope to. But when A.I. reads text, it’s merely picking up patterns. Peculiar details, outlier data and unusual perspectives that can influence thinking can get lost. Without eccentric or contrarian ideas, I never would have made my discoveries. For example, in his 2006 book “Toscana Romanica,” Guido Tigler, a professor at the University of Florence, argued the baptistery was built later than generally believed. It’s an idea that’s not widely accepted, and I believe that’s the reason the chatbots never presented it to me when I asked them what they would read to solve the enigma of the baptistery. Although I ultimately found reason to reject the later dating, Mr. Tigler’s unorthodox ideas taught me to more strongly consider the possibility that past scholarship had gotten the timeline for the baptistery wrong...

AI is a great tool, but don't forget it has limitations.  The above article provides important perspective.

Here is the link for more about that.

Opinion | What Happened When I Asked ChatGPT to Solve an 800-Year-Old Italian Mystery - The New York Times

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Surf Chart from Surfguru.com.

As you can see, the surf will be decreasing.

Good hunting,

Treasureguide@comcast.net