Hamas War

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Ancient Coins Found at Tel Shiloh

It has been announced that some ancient coins had been been found today at Tel Shiloh.


During the time of Biblical Shoftim, Judges, Shiloh was the official administrative center for the Jewish People.  This period lasted almost four hundred years.  To put it in perspective, how many of today's major cities have existed for that long?

And even after Shiloh's destruction, when the Jewish Kings, Saul and David ruled from other places, Shiloh still existed.  Recent archaeological finds and remains of more modern buildings prove that Shiloh was "always on the map."  And unlike many other Biblical sites, there's no debate about modern Shiloh being the location of Biblical Shiloh.

Here's the "unofficial" report in Hebrew about these coins:
בחפירות שלנו במשטח הצפוני של תל שילה התגלו היום שני מטבעות בתוך בור מים. על אחד המטבעות אפשר לזהות את האותיות ש ת ונראה שזהו מטבע של המרד הגדול. כיוון שהמטבעות עשויים מברונזה יש עליהן בליה והקריאה קשה מאוד לפני ניקוי במעבדה (זה מצב המטבעות העתיקים בדרך כלל).
לצד המטבעות התגלו בבור המים כלי חרס רבים מסוף תקופת הבית השני, וכן פריטי זכוכית וברונזה.
ממצאים כאלה התגלו גם במבנה שנחשף בחפירה והם עדות נוספת ליישוב יהודי בשילה בימי הבית שני. ככל הנראה היישוב היהודי בשילה נמשך ברצף מימי הבית הראשון עד מרד בר כוכבא.
My translation skills aren't good, but I'll try to give you the highlights:
In the northern part of Tel Shiloh being excavated two coins were found in a water well. On one coin it is possible to recognize the letters and may have been from the great revolt, because it's made out of bronze.  They need professional cleaning to make out more identifying  information.
In the water they also found pottery shards and glass.  More artifacts have been found in the house being uncovered which show proof of Jewish life in Shiloh during the Second Temple period.  Apparently Shiloh remained a Jewish city from the First Temple until the Bar Kochba revolt.

If you can give a better translation, please comment it, thanks.

3 comments:

Joe in Australia said...

Your translation is fine, but here's mine anyway:

"Today we discovered two coins in a cistern during our excavation of the northern part of Tel Shiloh. On one of them it is possible to recognise the letters Shin and Taf, and it appears that this coin is from the Great Revolt [of Bar Kochba against the Romans - trans.] The corrosion on the bronze coins makes it it hard to read the inscriptions without laboratory cleaning (which is very common with ancient coins). Besides the coins the cistern contained many clay vessels from the end of the Second Temple era, as well as bronze and glass items.

"Similar discoveries have been made in the structure exposed by the excavation, and are further evidence for the Jewish settlement in Shiloh during the Second Temple period, which apparently continued from the period of the First Temple until the Bar Kochba Revolt."

Batya said...

Thanks, Joe, I was so tired I could barely do my quick summary.

YMedad said...

Full story update here.