1 The Circulation of Dutch Leeuwendaalders in 17 th Century Ottoman Palestine: New Evidence from Two Unpublished Hoards Robert Kool Introduction The coin collection of the Israel Antiquities Authority possesses fifty-three silver lion dollars (‘leeuwendaalders’) of the Low Countries dating to the 16 and 17th century. These coins belong to two hoards, which were deposited at the Rockefeller Museum in the late 1920's but have never been properly identified and studied. Despite their wide circulation in the Eastern part of the Ottoman Empire during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, few finds of Leeuwendaalders have been recorded in detail. The publication below of two provenanced hoards therefore constitutes a valuable addition to our knowledge about the role this particular coinage played in the Eastern Mediterranean during the 16th—18th century. Lion dollars Lion dollars of the United Provinces were introduced as currency in the Ottoman Empire at the end of the 16th century by Dutch traders before official diplomatic relations existed between the Republic and the Ottoman empire (1612). 1 During the 17 th century these Dutch aslandi or esedi (lion) replaced the indigenous Akce. It became the predominant silver currency used in foreign commerce with the Ottomans until the end of 1 POL (1980) 22.