2,000-year-old coin with earliest menorah image returned to Israel after US seizure |
Two rare coins dating to over 2,000 years ago have been returned to Israel, following a joint law-enforcement operation between Israel and the United States, the Israel Antiquities Authority said in a statement on Tuesday.
One of the coins bears the earliest known depiction of the seven-branched Jewish menorah, along with a showbread table used in the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. It was minted in bronze in the first half of the first century CE, when the Second Temple was still standing.
The other coin, a 2,500-year-old silver coin most likely minted in the ancient city of Ashkelon, is only the second of its kind known worldwide.
According to the IAA, the coins were unearthed by looters and smuggled abroad. They were set to be sold at auctions in the US but were seized in a joint operation between the IAA Theft Prevention Unit, the Antiquities Trafficking Unit at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, and US Homeland Security.
The artifacts were handed over during a ceremony in New York on Monday.
Both coins are very representative of the period and location they came from, according to Robert Kool, head of the IAA Coin Department.
“What makes this coin so interesting is the iconography,” Kool told The Times of Israel over the phone, referring to the menorah.
The value of bronze coins was significantly lower than that of gold or silver coins, and they are much more common to find in archaeological excavations and on the market.
Yet, the Hasmonean coin saved in the US represents something of an exception, both because only a few dozen like it have been identified (a relatively small number for a bronze coin) and because of the highly symbolic value of its engravings.
Mattathias Antigonus was the last of the Maccabees, the family of high priests who, over a century earlier, defeated the Greek Seleucids in the story celebrated with the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.
He was supported by the Parthians, the group that ruled Persia and other territories in the East at the time, who in 40 BCE conquered the land of Israel from the Romans and installed Mattathias as king of Jerusalem.
“Herod was seen as an usurper, and Mattathias was not only the king, but also the high priest,” Kool noted. “These coins were sending a message: ‘I am the king and the high priest, and I’m safeguarding the most precious symbols and the Temple for the Jewish people.”
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