
Also this week, an announcement was made that a stash of ancient coins dating from the rebellion that led up to the temple's destruction, was discovered in Jerusalem.
This is an unusual find in some way. Here's a bit of what the archaeologists have to say.
The coins are all of identical size and age, and possibly from the same mint. Their value has yet to be determined, but they are likely quarter or one-eighth shekel bits, Betzer said. They are all marked with the words “For the redemption of Zion” and “Year four,” indicating they were made during the fourth year of the revolt against the Roman Empire, or between spring 69 and spring 70 CE. They are decorated with the Biblical four species — palm, myrtle, citron and willow — and a vessel that may symbolize those used in the temple. The coins are still encrusted in nearly 2,000-year-old dirt and oxidation, and await cleaning and study by IAA specialists.
“What this teaches this is that the person who held onto this trove received it all in one batch,” he said while exhibiting the brilliant greenish coins at the IAA’s Har Hotzvim laboratories in Jerusalem. “He received them from the rebel leadership; he may have been part of the rebel leadership.” Perhaps, he speculated, they were funds destined for the purchase of arms or provisions for the Jewish fighters against the Roman legions.“These coins were minted a few months before the destruction of the temple [in Jerusalem],” he said. “It was one of the last efforts by the rebels to prevail.” Ultimately, however, they failed, and on the Ninth of Av, 70 CE, the Romans crushed the rebellion by destroying the temple in Jerusalem and slaughtering the city’s inhabitants.
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