“Revolt” Coins Minted on Temple Mount

058

Modern scholars, it seems, are almost continually adding to our understanding of the riches of the Temple Mount.

Of course the item of special interest is the Temple itself. And we have multiple newly discovered temples to provide the context of this central structure so lavishly described in the Bible. All this is explained in the preceding article by Israeli scholar Victor Hurowitz.

Also in this issue, we publish archaeologist David Ussishkin’s plausible suggestion as to the location of Solomon’s palace on the Temple Mount—north, rather than south as had previously been thought, of the Temple.

In the Second Temple period (the time of Jesus), the Temple built by Herod the Great dominated the Temple Mount. On the southern end of the Temple Mount, Herod erected a magnificent Royal Stoa. Josephus called it “a structure more noteworthy than any under the sun.”¹ Mirabile dictu, archaeological evidence of this magnificence has been recovered and recently described (and 059pictured) for BAR readers by Orit Peleg-Birkat.^a

Now the distinguished numismatist Donald Ariel of the Israel Antiquities Authority has suggested that this Royal Stoa was the location of, among other things, the mint where silver coins were struck during the First Jewish Revolt against Rome (66–70 C.E.).

The Jewish rebels minted a variety of coins during the more than four years of the revolt. Each is dated—from Year 1 to Year 5 of the revolt. Although the coins varied from the silver shekel to the bronze prutot, only the most valuable and most elegant—silver shekels—were minted in the Royal Stoa on the Temple Mount.

A typical silver shekel was inscribed on the obverse “Year 2, Shekel of Israel.” In the center was a chalice or goblet.

On the reverse “Jerusalem the Holy” was inscribed around the rim. In the center of the reverse was—well, there is a disagreement. The late great Yaakov Meshorer said it was a stem with three pomegranates growing on it. Robert Deutsch (yes, one of the defendants in the recently concluded forgery trial) in his doctoral dissertation agrees with scholars from an earlier generation that what is represented on these coins is Aaron’s wooden staff that overnight grew blossoms and almonds, designating him as high priest (Numbers 17:8; Hebrews 17:23). Actually, this suggestion goes back to the 12th-century Jewish sage Maimonides. Deutsch adduced additional evidence for this position: The stem is straight, unlike a curved pomegranate branch, he wrote, and the stem has no leaves, looking more like a staff than a pomegranate branch. The final touch: At the bottom of the stem is a dot (or finial). Ariel finds Deutsch’s argument convincing.

Ariel has suggested that these silver shekels were minted in the Royal Stoa under the authority of the Temple priests. “Where [would] a mint run by the priests with access to the silver of the Jerusalem Temple be?” he asks. And he answers: “On the Temple Mount … [And] the most logical place within the Temple precinct for such an activity is the monumental stoa at the southern part of the Temple Mount. That is where economic and judicial functions were concentrated.”² The Royal Stoa is also thought to be the place where Jesus overturned the tables of the money-changers (Matthew 21:12).

Ariel is careful to emphasize that he has not “proven” his case as a fact. But it seems to be the best argument so far.

The revolt leadership was famously fragmented. Ariel notes the “rivalry and internecine warfare characterizing the revolt.” Nevertheless, despite the fact that control passed from the priests to more than one group of Zealots—first to John of Gischala and then to Simon bar Giora—the silver shekels continued to be minted in the Royal Stoa on the Temple Mount just as before. “Probably the same priests were responsible for the minting even though the ‘minting authority’ had changed three times … The changing rebel leadership did not intervene. They even refrained from identifying themselves as the minting authorities on the coins … The priests in charge of the striking were free to maintain the coins’ iconography, dating conventions, denominations and technology. Only the dates were changed.”

It is not hard to imagine this coin minting in the glorious Royal Stoa as the Roman troops drew ever nearer, finally burning and smashing both the Temple and the Royal Stoa into fragments.

The Royal Stoa at the southern end of Herod’s Temple Mount was “a structure more noteworthy than any under the sun,” according to Josephus. And when the First Jewish Revolt broke out in 66 C.E., this magnificent building became a hub for rebel coin minting