‘Miracle’ hoard of Hasmonean coins discovered during Hanukkah in Jordan Valley dig
Haifa University team finds cache of 160 extremely rare coins – dated to 80/79 BCE, during the reign of Judah Maccabee’s grand-nephew – near Alexandrion Fortress, north of Jericho
Gavriel Fiske is a reporter at The Times of Israel
In what they called an “archaeological Hanukkah miracle,” a University of Haifa team discovered on Friday a rare hoard of some 160 coins, dating from the Hasmonean period, during a dig in the Jordan Valley, the university said Sunday.
The coins were discovered in what is thought to have been a roadside station, on what was then a main road along Nahal Tirzah that ascended to the Alexandrion Fortress, also known as Sarbata, north of Jericho in what is now the West Bank.
The coins were dated by experts to the reign of “King Alexander Jannaeus, whose Hebrew name was Jonathan… He reigned from 104–76 BCE. He was the son of Johanan Hyrcanus, [and] the grandson of Simon the Hasmonean (brother of Judah Maccabee),” the statement said, noting that the Alexandrion Fortress, near where the coins were discovered, was built by Jannaeus.
Judah Maccabee was the famous leader of the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid Empire and Hellenistic influence on Jewish life, which broke out in 167 BCE, which ultimately led to the cleansing of the Temple in Jerusalem and the later establishment of the Hanukkah holiday, currently being celebrated by Jewish communities worldwide.
“The students and volunteer excavators were very excited to find such a Hasmonean hoard, especially during the Hanukkah holiday,” the researchers said.
Dr. Yoav Farhi, part of the research team and an expert on ancient coins, had arrived on Friday at the dig site with a pack of “Hannukah Gelt,” the chocolate coins covered in gold foil that are a ubiquitous feature of the holiday, explained Dr. Shay Bar of the University of Haifa’s Zinman Institute of Archaeology.
Farhi passed them out to the staff and said, “This is so that we will find some coins today, and four or five hours later, the coins were found,” Bar said on Sunday, speaking to The Times of Israel.
Bar, Farhi, and a third expert, Dr. Mechael Osband, all associated with the University of Haifa, are the lead archaeologists on the dig.
It was clear from the first moment that the coins were a special find, and most of the coins were of a similar type, Bar said. It is likely that the coins were hidden away in or behind a wall, wrapped in a sack of leather or other organic material that later wasted away, he said.
On one side, the coins have “an eight-pointed star surrounded by the inscription: ‘King Alexander Year 25’ in Aramaic, and on the reverse an anchor appears surrounded by the Greek words ‘[coin] of King Alexander,’” Farhi said in the statement.
This style of coin dates from 80/79 BCE and is extremely rare, the researchers said, who added that the cache is also one of the largest collections of ancient coins ever discovered in the Holy Land.
According to Bar, in addition to the collection of 160 coins, other Hasmonean period coins were also discovered during the excavation, bringing the total number of coins found at the site to over 200.
The coins will now be cleaned, photographed, cataloged and examined, and “it’s clear an article will come out of this,” Bar said.
The location had originally thought to have been from the Roman period, part of imperial infrastructure between Beit She’an and Jericho, but it turns out that the complex was from an earlier period, he said.
The site includes a mikvah (ritual bath), a cistern for storing water, and other buildings. It’s likely that the room where the coins were discovered was used as a kitchen or for food preparation, Bar said.
“We discovered a Hasmonean site, on the ascent to Sarbata… It’s very Jewish. It’s important because this site was active for a limited period. The moment we have these coins, dating to the time of Alexander Jannaeus, with all the other finds there… it gives us a very exact time capsule, which doesn’t always happen in archaeology,” Bar said.
The Alexandrion Fortress, called Sarbata in the Mishna and Talmud, was mentioned by Josephus and restored by King Herod, who used it as a prison. The fortress, which overlooks the Jordan Valley, was razed sometime during the Jewish Revolt against Rome (66-74 CE).
“It’s really a rare moment” to discover so many important coins, Bar said. As the cache was being unearthed, he related, he turned to Farhi, one of Israel’s experts on ancient coins, and said: “Listen Yoav, I’ve never found such a thing. He looked at me and smiled, and said, ‘Neither have I…’ we were both so excited.”
