Three Graces Coin, c. 300 CE
Three Graces Coin Coins depicting the Three Graces of Greek mythology, found at Hammat-Gader. “Healing Waters; The Social World of Hot Springs in Roman Palestine,” BAR Jul-Aug 2004.
Archive for May, 2008
Owl Coin, 4th century BCE
Male Athena Coin 2 The owl, the symbol of Athens, appears on this coin, and on the reverse side we see a male head with beard and oriental hairdress. On the left side of the owl is the letter aleph (“A”); on his lower right is the letter nun (“N”) (both in old-Hebrew). Aleph and […]
Male Athena Coin, 4th century BCE
Male Athena Coin The helmeted male head on this c. 4th century B.C. silver drachma is actually the head of Athena, as it appears on Athenian coins. The female face is disguised by the addition of a beard. The drachma was minted in Gaza. The Holy Land in Coins, Yaakov Meshorer, BAR Mar 1978.
Aelia Capitoliana Coin Hoards, 135-200 CE
1. The Silet edh-Dhahr hoard. Four coins of Aelia Capitolina were found among 94 coins of other cities. 2. The Sheikh Zuweid hoard, found in 1969. It included coins of Raphia and Caesarea (about 200 of each city), Ascalon (about 150), Gaza (about 100), Eleutheropolis (50) Ptolemais (20), Anthedon (20), Joppa (5), and the largest […]
Empress Sabrina Aelia Capitolina Coin, c. 133-134 CE
Empress Sabina, Hadrian’s wife, appears on an Aelia Capitolina coin, found in a tunnel in the el-Jai cave. The same cave yielded a second Aelia Capitolina coin (see photograph), which also celebrates the founding of the Roman colony in Jerusalem, and a coin from Gaza that can be dated to 133–134 C.E. Hanan Eshel argues […]
Coin Depicting the Temple, 132-135 CE
The Temple of Jerusalem, in all its glory, appears on the first tetradrachma, minted by the Jewish rebels, to be excavated legally. About 2,000 unprovenanced rebel coins depicting the Temple, which the Romans destroyed in 70 C.E., have also been found, leading some scholars to suggest that the rebels minted these coins after recapturing Jerusalem […]
Coins Bearing the Name Shimon, 132-135 CE
Excavators have found two folded papyri and 11 bronze coins in a desert cave within the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve, near the western shore of the Dead Sea. Three of the coins bear the name “Shimon,” Hebrew for Simon, and date to the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome (132–135 A.D.), which was led by Simon […]
Shechem City Coin, 207-212 CE
Shechem City Coin During the Roman period, gold and silver coins minted in Rome, as well as bronze coins minted in a number of Palestinian cities, were used in the Holy Land. Indeed, over thirty cities on both sides of the Jordan minted bronze coins, principally during the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. Known as […]
Coin from Sepphoris, 2nd century CE
This second-century C.E. coin shows all the characteristics of a pagan design. By the mid-second century C.E., such signs of Greco-Roman influence were on the rise in Sepphoris. But as Mark Chancey and Eric Meyers point out, scholars should be careful about using this late evidence to prove anything about the city in the time […]
Gadara Coin, 2nd century CE
REDIRECT Naval Coins from Gadara, 2nd century CE