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2,200-Year-Old Coin Hoard Gives Proof of Book of Maccabees

(Times of Israel) Amanda Borschel-Dan - Archaeologists recently uncovered a cache of 2,200-year-old silver coins near the Dead Sea, which they say is the first physical proof that Jews fled to the Judean Desert during the upheaval and persecution under Hanukkah villain Antiochus. As told in I Maccabees 2:29, in the period prior to the Maccabean Revolt, righteous men were exhorted to leave everything and flee to the desert. In May, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) discovered an incredibly preserved wooden box holding 15 silver tetradrachma coins in a cave in the Darageh Stream Nature Reserve. The coins were minted by Ptolemy VI, king of Egypt, and date to up to 170 BCE. The hoard was stashed by a fleeing Jew, said Eitan Klein, deputy director of the IAA's Theft Prevention Unit. "In general, when we find a cache of coins, they tell us a story of war. Otherwise people don't run off and leave their life savings." In today's terms, the coins are worth two months' average salary. "You don't just go off and leave NIS 30,000 [$9,000] in a cave."
2022-12-15 00:00:00
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