Archaeologists unearth first proof of Maccabean Revolt, just in time for Chanukah

The first evidence for the Maccabean Revolt in the Judean Desert has been unearthed by Israeli archaeologists.

Experts found a wooden box containing 15 silver coins dating to the reign of Antiochus IV during an excavation in the Darageh Stream Nature Reserve, overlooking the Dead Sea.

The team says a refugee from the war with the Greeks probably hid the box in the cave, intending to return to collect his money after the revolt.

The box was hidden in Muraba‘at Cave in the Darageh Stream Nature Reserve about 2,200 years ago, and was discovered within a crack in the cave during excavations last May.

The silver tetradrachma coins were minted by Ptolemy VI, who reigned as King of Egypt at the same time his uncle Antiochos IV Epiphanes, dubbed "the Wicked” in Rabbinical sources, ruled the Seleucid Kingdom that included Judea.

The three earliest coins in the hoard were minted in 176/5 BCE, and the latest coin dates to 170-1 BCE. The name “Shalmai” in Aramaic script was found secondarily incised on one of the coins.

Based on the date of the latest coin in the hoard in 170 BCE, the year when the hoard was hidden can be fixed to the beginning of the Maccabean Revolt, and the war declared against Antiochus Epiphanes IV decrees against the Jewish religion, or to the events that led up to the Revolt.

The coin cache (Dafna Gazit, Israel Antiquities Authority)

Dr Eitan Klein, who studied the coins together with Dr. Gabriela Bijovsky, Israel Antiquities Authority numismatic expert said: “It is interesting to try to visualize the person who fled to the cave and hid his personal property here intending to return to collect it.

"The person was probably killed in the battles, and he did not return to collect his possessions which awaited almost 2,200 years until we retrieved them," he continued.

Dr Klein said the box of coins are an “absolutely unique find,” and that they present “the first clear archaeological evidence that the Judean Desert caves played an active role as the stage of the activities of the Jewish rebels or the fugitives in the early days of the Maccabean Revolt, or the events that led up to them.”

The First Book of Maccabees, which contains the first references to the story of Hanukkah and the Temple’s rededication, records that groups of Jews fled to hiding places in the desert due to the decrees imposed on the Jews.

According to Dr. Klein, the Books of the Maccabees describe the dramatic events of the times, that would have led people to hide their possessions in the Judean Desert until the danger passed.

Another explanation could be the plundering of the Jerusalem Temple treasures by Antiochos IV, and the destruction of the Jerusalem city wall in the years that led up to the revolt.

The religious decrees imposed on the Jews in 167 BCE could also have led people to hide their possessions in the remote Judean caves.

Wadi Muraba‘at (Emil Aladjam, Israel Antiquities Authority)

The coins will go on public display in the Hasmonean Museum in Modi‘in, as part of the “Israel Heritage Week” that will coincide with this year’s Chanukah celebrations, between 18 and 26 December.

The Israel Antiquities Authority’s director, Eli Escusido, said that the public exhibition throughout the Chanukah festival will “fire the imagination and connect us with ‘those days in this season’.

“This is the Chanukah ‘gelt’ that the Israel Antiquities Authority is donating to the people and the State of Israel. We consider that the cave has not yet said its final word!”

Israel’s heritage authorities have also invite the public to take part in a special archaeological expedition in the Judean Desert from 20-28 December.