Fatimid Hoards as Evidence of the First Crusade and the Establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099–1101)

Hoards of the Fatimid period have been used by scholars to illustrate a variety of macro-historical developments in the eleventh-century CE Fatimid Empire and Fatimid-ruled Palestine. This is not surprising as the number of Fatimid-period hoards discovered in excavations is very large, totaling 29. However, the deposition of a large share of these so-called ‘Fatimid hoards,’ 15 out of the 29, are in fact important material evidence of the arrival of the armies of the First Crusade in 1099 in southern Syria/Palestine and the territorial expansion of the newly established Kingdom of Jerusalem during the first years of the twelfth century CE.