Hasmonean Coin Chronologies: Two Notes more

17 2009–10 STUDIES IN HONOUR OF ARNOLD SPAER Edited by: DAN BARAG AND BOAZ ZISSU THE ISRAEL NUMISMATIC JOURNAL VOL. 17 JERUSALEM 2010 ISRAEL NUMISMATIC JOURNAL FOUNDED BY L. KADMAN Editorial Board: D. Barag, B. Zissu (editors), H. Eshel, R. Barkay, A. Spaer. Style and Copy Editor: D. Stern The publication of this issue was made possible by the generous contribution of the Leo Mildenberg Memorial Bequest. All correspondence, papers for publication and books for review should be addressed to: Israel Numismatic Journal, c/o Dr. Boaz Zissu, Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, 52900, Israel, or to bzissu@gmail.com Copyright © The Israel Numismatic Journal The editors are not responsible for opinions expressed by the contributors. ISSN 1565-4079 Distributed by Israel Exploration Society, P.O.B. 7041, Jerusalem 91070, Israel. Page layout by Avraham Pladot Typesetting by Marzel A.S. — Jerusalem Printed by Old City Press, Jerusalem, Israel ISRAEL NUMISMATIC JOURNAL VOLUME 17 CONTENTS 9 11 15 34 39 48 59 77 88 91 98 106 113 DAN BARAG AND BOAZ ZISSU: A Tribute to Arnold Spaer A Bibliography of Arnold Spaer CATHARINE LORBER Hoard AND 2009–10 ARTHUR HOUGHTON: An Early Seleucid Bronze DAVID HENDIN: Hasmonean Coin Chronologies: Two Notes R ACHEL B ARKAY: The Coinage of the Nabataean King Malichus I (59/58–30 BCE) Z OHAR A MAR : The Shewbread Table on the Coins of Mattathias Antigonus: A Reconsideration YOAV FARHI, URI DAVIDOVICH, YUVAL GADOT, Ramat Ra¢el Hoard of Tyrian Shekels AND ODED LIPSCHITS: The YINON SHIVTIEL, BOAZ ZISSU, AND HANAN ESHEL: The Distribution of Coins of the Jewish War against Rome in Galilee and Phoenicia RONNY REICH: A Note on Coins from the First Revolt against Rome Discovered at Carnuntum, Austria HANAN ESHEL, BOAZ ZISSU, AND GABRIEL BARKAY: Sixteen Bar Kokhba Coins from Roman Sites in Europe ROI PORAT, EHUD NETZER, YAªAKOV KALMAN, AND RACHEL CHACHY: Bar Kokhba Coins from Herodium (Hebrew University Expedition) DAN BARAG: Halved Bronze Coins from the Bar Kokhba War BOAZ ZISSU, HANAN ESHEL, BOAZ LANGFORD AND AMOS FRUMKIN: Coins from the Bar Kokhba Revolt Hidden in Meªarat Ha-Teºomim (Mughâret ™ Umm et Tûeimîn), Western Jerusalem Hills R OBERT D EUTSCH : A Note on a Medallion of Antoninus Pius from Neapolis: The Largest Medallion Minted in Palestine AVNER ECKER: The Coinage of Jaffa in the Roman Period 148 151 177 187 198 206 213 233 238 YOAV FARHI: City Coins from Roman Palestine Made of Lead and Comparable Materials EITAN KLEIN: The Hercules Relief (Oscillum?) from Khirbet el-Karmil Reconsidered D. M. METCALF: Some Byzantine Lead Seals of Scholastici ALLA KUSHNIR-STEIN: Four Inscribed Lead Weights from the Collection of Arnold Spaer NIKOLAUS SCHINDEL AND WOLFGANG HAHN: Imitations of Sicilian Folles of Constantine IV from Bilad al-Sham NITZAN AMITAI-PREISS AND YOAV FARHI: A Small Assemblage of Lead Sealings, Weight and Coins from the Early Islamic Period D AN B ARAG : A Hoard of Amalricus I Deniers from the Vicinity of Bethlehem Obituary: Dan P. Barag Obituary: Hanan Eshel Obituary: Silvia Mani Hurter LIST OF ADDRESSES OF AUTHORS ABBREVIATIONS 246 248 251 253 255 Hasmonean Coin Chronologies: Two Notes DAVID HENDIN COINS WITH THE NAME JUDAH THE Hasmonean coins with the name Judah have been ambivalently attributed to either Judah Aristobulus I (104 BCE) or to Judah Aristobulus II (67–63 BCE).1 It is the premise of this note that the coins can be epigraphically attributed with certainty to Aristobulus I and, furthermore, that their internal chronology can be established. Others have attempted to use standard paleographic analysis to establish the chronology of Hasmonean coins.2 However, such studies have not fully recognized ramifications of the fact that paleo-Hebrew was not in common use during the Hasmonean period. Therefore the usual methods of studying the evolution of script forms are not relevant. The proto-Hebrew script, as Kanael notes, “saw only very limited use in the Maccabean age.”3 During this period, Aramaic was the principal language and script of the Jewish people. According to Naveh, “Texts written in the Hebrew script in the Second Temple period are rare…. These texts are official in nature and seem to indicate that the use of the Hebrew script in this period had nationalistic connotations.”4 The texts to which Naveh refers are seals, scrolls, and coins. The use of this archaic Hebrew script “represented the former glory of the Davidic kingdom which the Hasmonean rulers attempted to regain and restore.”5 Almost all Hasmonean coin types are inscribed with the paleo-Hebrew script. Thus, even the script selection was part of the effort of the Jewish monarchs to make a statement about themselves and their kingdom. Instead of Hebrew, evidence shows that during the first century BCE, “the Aramaic script, also known as the ‘square script’ or ‘Syrian script,’ was the leading one. It was used for writing both in Hebrew and in Aramaic, and it seems that 1 2 3 4 5 Y. Meshorer: A Treasury of Jewish Coins from the Persian Period to Bar Kokhba, Jerusalem and Nyack, NY, 2001, p. 36. M. D. McLean: Chronologies for the Hasmonean Coinage, unpublished manuscript prepared for the American Numismatic Society Summer Seminar, 1979; M. D. McLean: The Initial Coinage of Alexander Jannaeus, American Numismatic Society Museum Notes 26 (1981), pp. 153–161; A. Kindler: Coins of the Land of Israel: Collection of the Bank of Israel, Jerusalem, 1974, p. 9. B. Kanael: Ancient Jewish Coins and Their Historical Importance, The Biblical Archaeologist 26, no. 2 (1963), p. 44. J. Naveh: Early History of the Alphabet, Jerusalem, 1987, p. 119. Y. Meshorer: Ancient Jewish Coinage, vol. 1, Nyack, NY, 1982, p. 51. 34 HASMONEAN COIN CHRONOLOGIES: TWO NOTES 35 the early paleo-Hebrew script was almost completely forgotten and only few were able to read it,” according to Meshorer.6 Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, the only paleo-Hebrew manuscripts, except for Job, are from the Pentateuch.7 In some other scrolls written in Aramaic, only the Tetragrammaton, or name of the Lord, is written in paleo-Hebrew, “thus indicating that the scribes who preserved this script knew that it was the original Hebrew one and its archaic flavor made it suitable for writing the name of the Lord.”8 The limited use of paleo-Hebrew script during the Maccabean period was thus symbolic. It was meant to revive thoughts of the glorious days of the Israelite period around the time of King David and even “the desire to create a link between the earlier kingdoms of Judah and Israel and that of the Hasmonean dynasty…. These were however not living letters to which the principles of development and evolution could apply.”9 Among the earliest known inscriptions using the paleo-Hebrew script is the Gezer Calendar, dated to the late tenth century BCE. It is closely related to Phoenician inscriptions from the same period. The paleo-Hebrew script was used on jar handles dated to the late eighth century BCE and to stone scale weights of Judah dated to the eighth through sixth centuries BCE, as well as hundreds of stone and bone seals dating from the same period. The earliest known fragments of a biblical text are written in paleo-Hebrew script on a small silver scroll found in a burial cave at Ketef Hinnom and dated to the late seventh century BCE. The text is the Priestly Benediction in Numbers 6:24–26: “The Lord bless you and protect you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance to you and give you peace.”10 After the Babylonian capture of Judah and the exile of large numbers of Jews, including most of the nobles, around 586 BCE, the Jews who remained behind continued to use the paleo-Hebrew script. Two generations later, when many Jews returned from exile, their language had become Aramaic and only those Jews who had stayed behind continued to use the paleo-Hebrew script. Soon both the Aramaic language and the “square” Hebrew script became the official means of communication in Judah and later Judea. 6 7 8 9 10 Meshorer (n. 1 above), p. 40. J. VanderKam and P. Flint: The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls, New York, 2002, p. 151. Meshorer (n. 1 above), p. 40. Y. Meshorer: Jewish Coins of the Second Temple Period, Tel Aviv, 1967, p. 48. G. Barkay, M. J. Lundberg, A. Vaughn, B. Zuckerman, and K. Zuckerman: The Challenges of Ketef Hinnom: Using Advanced Technologies to Recover the Earliest Biblical Texts and Their Context, Near Eastern Archaeology 66, no. 4 (2003), pp. 162–171 (at JSTOR). The cave was excavated by archaeologist Gaby Barkay, and the scroll was later identified by Ya’akov Meshorer, then chief curator of archaeology at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. 36 DAVID HENDIN In summary, then, it is impossible to undertake a meaningful epigraphic study of the paleo-Hebrew script used on the coins of the Maccabees or the Jewish wars, because it was an alphabet no longer in normal use. Instead of evolving as would a living alphabet, variations in script forms resulted from the way each master engraver and his assistants or apprentices cut these scripts into the coin dies. Since paleo-Hebrew was no longer used, and it is not likely that artisans such as celators were literate, we can assume that each workshop was supplied with a written version of the legends to be used, and these were probably copied from “the letters from ancient manuscripts which were no doubt kept in the library of the Temple at Jerusalem. Thus the style of a letter on a particular coin would resemble that in a certain ancient scroll but not on another contemporary coin copied from a different scroll in the same library. The multiplicity of styles in the lettering on the coins of the Hasmoneans has its origin, therefore, in the different sources from which the letters of the inscriptions on the coins were copied.”11 Thus each celator transferred his version of the designated legend to a die for striking coins — the more skilled and artistic the engraver, the better the style. Hence we can see various styles of script on Hasmonean coins. Other than in a few instances where we can suggest that the same celator worked during the reigns of more than one ruler, there is little to be learned about the chronology of the coins from the style of the paleo-Hebrew scripts. The best example of one celator working under consecutive rulers consists of the coins struck during the brief reign of Judah Aristobulus I in 104 BCE. The rarest type (TJC V) (Fig. 1) uses wedge-like characters that logically can be assumed to have come from the same workshop, and perhaps even the same hand, as the Hyrcanus I coins with the same style (TJC D and I) (Figs. 2 and 3). However, the more common Aristobulus coins (TJC U) (Fig. 4) contain a blockstyle script virtually identical in style to some coins of his successor, Alexander Jannaeus (TJC Q) (Fig. 5), and likely came from the same workshop, if not the same engraver. It is not coincidental that the cornucopia motif on the reverse of these coin types can also be stylistically linked in almost every instance. This connection between the workshops of Aristobulus’s predecessor and successor allow us to absolutely place his coin between those of Hyrcanus I and Alexander Jannaeus, thereby confirming that these coins were struck by Aristobulus I. Furthermore, we can establish an internal chronology, since the coins with the wedge-like characters are connected to his predecessor and those with the block-style script are connected to his successor. 11 Meshorer (n. 9 above), p. 49. HASMONEAN COIN CHRONOLOGIES: TWO NOTES 37 Figs. 1–10. Hasmonean coins ANOTHER STYLE OF JANNAEUS OVERSTRIKE After reading the recent article that I wrote together with Ilan Shachar on the identity of yntn on Hasmonean overstruck coins and the chronology of the Jannaeus types,12 an American collector called another relevant overstrike to my attention.13 12 13 D. Hendin and I. Shachar: The Identity of YNTN on Hasmonean Overstruck Coins and the Chronology of the Alexander Jannaeus Types, Israel Numismatic Research 3 (2008), pp. 87–94. Thanks to Ira Ettinger for his keen observation and his permission to publish this coin. 38 DAVID HENDIN At first glance, the coin appears to be a standard member of the overstruck series. The original coin here is of the standard anchor/lily type (TJC N) (Fig. 6). However, the second strike, instead of the usual yntn type (TJC T) (Fig. 7), is from dies of the “cursive” style of the TJC R type. It is described as follows: Obv: Cursive-style paleo-Hebrew within a wreath. Enough letters are visible to determine the type and script style. Rev: Double cornucopia with pomegranate in between, overstruck upon anchor within circle and surrounded by still-visible Greek legend [B]AÓIËEÙÓ AËEÎANÄ[POY]. AE; 1.8 gr.; 13×14 mm; axis of Hebrew/cornucopias coin: 12 (Fig. 8) Another coin of the same type that escaped our previous notice was published by Kaufman (IA-29) with a note that it would be published by Y. Meshorer with details and comments (Fig. 9). Apparently, however, Meshorer was not able to complete the work before his death.14 On the present coin, the inscription style is clear. All known varieties of the TJC R type contain the name yhntn, and the Kaufman specimen has a clear yhntn legend. The coin Shachar and I published is a triple overstrike (Fig. 10), with the final coin struck being the Jannaeus anchor/star type (TJC K). We believe that the coin provided “an unequivocal answer to the attribution of this yntn coin group and to the relative chronology of the anchor/flower type.”15 Both the new coin and the Kaufman coin discussed here provide additional confirmation of Shachar’s original suggestions regarding the internal chronology of Jannaeus coins,16 as well as of the Hendin-Shachar proof that the yntn overstrikes were done during the reign of Jannaeus and that the overstrike issue is correctly attributed to Alexander Jannaeus.17 Finally, this overstrike involving the “cursive” style (TJC R) indicates that at least some of the coins with Hebrew yhntn in wreath/double cornucopia were struck quite late in the reign of Jannaeus, contemporaneously with or later than the Jannaeus issues with his royal title. This coin also shows that at least some yhntn coins were overstruck at around the same time as the large issue of yntn overstrikes. 14 15 16 17 J. C. Kaufman: Unrecorded Hasmonean Coins from the J. Ch. Kaufman Collection, Jerusalem, 1995, INS: 42, IA-29, p. 42, coin IA-29. Hendin and Shachar (n. 12 above), p. 90. I. Shachar: The Historical and Numismatic Significance of Alexander Jannaeus’ Later Coinage as Found in Archaeological Excavations, Palestine Exploration Quarterly 136 (2004), pp. 5–33. Hendin and Shachar 2008