An ancient treasure trove of silver coins dating back 2,200 years found in a desert cave in Israel could add crucial new evidence to support a story of Jewish rebellion, archaeologists say.
could add crucial new evidence to support a story of Jewish rebellion, archaeologists said Tuesday.
The find represents the “first evidence in the Judean Desert for the Maccabean revolt against the Greek Seleucid Kingdom,” the authority said in a press release Tuesday.The Maccabees revolted against the Seleucid king — Antiochus IV Epiphanes, referred to in Jewish sources as “The Wicked” — and his banning of Jewish practices.
“It is interesting to try to visualize the person who fled to the cave and hid his personal property here intending to return to collect it. The person was probably killed in the battles, and he did not return to collect his possessions that awaited almost 2,200 years until we retrieved it,” he said in a statement.
According to tradition, a priest called Mattathias sparked the revolt in 167 by refusing to worship Greek gods, killing a Jew who tried to take his place then destroying an altar. He and his five sons then fled and went into hiding. The box was made with a lathe and was packed with earth and stone, below which was a purple woolen cloth covering the coins. The impeccably well-preserved tetradrachm coins — large silver coins commonly used in the ancient Greek world — are from the reign of Ptolemy VI, who ruled Egypt at the same time Epiphanes, his uncle, ruled the Seleucid Empire, including Judea.
“But it doesn’t indicate to me that these are people fleeing because of persecution. It would rather indicate to me that these might be people who are connected to the earlier Ptolymaic structure and were deposed or otherwise fell out of favor with the Seleucids. And that would have possibly been before the revolt.”
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