Hard cover, 23.5x18 cm., 100 pages, 80 illustrations (one in color), 5 plates.

Forty New Ancient West Semitic Inscriptions

Heltzer, Michael

Deutsch, Robert

Archaeological Center Publications

Hard cover, 24.5x17.5 cm., 93 pages, 82 photos (two in color), 48 drawings.

Windows to the Past

Hard cover, 26.5x20.5 cm., 446 pages, 38 articles: 17 in English, 5 in German, 3 in french and 13 in Hebrew. 37 photos and 28 drawings.

Michael: Historical, Epigraphical and Biblical Studies in Honor of Prof. Michael Heltzer

Avishur, Yitzhak and Robert Deutsch

The "Adoniram" collection was formed by a Swiss collector during a period of more than 20 years. The collection includes 29 inscribed items: 2 bronze arrowheads, 22 stone seals, 2 gold pendants, and 3 bronze weights. They cover a period of 700 years, from the 11th century through 5th century B.C.E. The arrowheads are Phoenician of the 11th century B.C.E. and bear a possessive inscription indicating ownership. The collection is of historical value and makes an important contribution to our knowledge of the past.

The Adoniram Collection of West Semitic Inscriptions

Lemaire, André

Many scholars will find Mr. Kaufman's collection of biblical period Hebrew bullae, of great scientific importance. For several years the author had the privilege of studying hundreds of items in his collection and of publishing some of them in several books. Artifacts such as inscribed vessels, arrowheads, ostraca, weights, jar handles, seals and bullae have been published since 1994 in four books: 'Forty New Ancient West Semitic Inscriptions', 'New Epigraphic Evidence from the biblical Period', 'Windows to the Past' and 'Epigraphic News' (Deutsch and Heltzer 1994, 1995, 1997 and 1999). Most recently an important weight from his collection was also published in the Israel Numismatic Journal: 'A Lead Weight of Hadrian: The Prototype for the Bar-Kokhba Weights' (Deutsch 2002). Mr Kaufman's collection of Hebrew bullae presented in this book is the largest and the most important to be published to date. The collection consists of 516 bullae, all Hebrew except for nos. 89 and 419. They were impressed by 421 different seals and there are 95 duplicates. Two seals are also presented. The collection contains 6 royal bullae, a royal bulla without the title and a royal bulla without the name of the king; 50 bullae of royal officials are divided between 2 commanders of the army, 5 servants of Ahaz, 20 servants of Hezekiah (including 9 duplicates), 9 servants of the king, 5 sons of the king, one who is over the house, a chief officer ngd, a governor and 5 governors of the city; also included is a bulla of a priest. Seals and bullae of women are rare, but 7 bullae are presented, 6 of wives (including 4 duplicates) and one of a daughter. 13 fiscal bullae are also present in the collection. The remaining 343 bullae are of untitled men (including 78 duplicates). Two anepigraphic bullae are also included. Out of the 516 bullae, only 26 were previously published, so the majority, 491, are published here for the first time. In fact, this collection almost doubles the corpus of Hebrew bullae published to date. The collection is to be dated mainly to the second half of the 8th and to the 7th century B.C.E. The bullae datable with certainty are the royal bullae of Hezekiah and of the royal officials of Hoshea, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. The earlier bullae in the collection should be those of the servants of Ahaz, the king of Judah, who ruled from 742/1 to 726 B.C.E,. Hoshea, the last king of Israel, who ruled from 732/1 to 722 B.C.E,. and Hezekiah, who ruled in Judah from 726 to 697/6 B.C.E. The importance of the datable bullae is self evident. The letters will serve as reliable chronological pegs for the study of Hebrew paleography and the designs offer valuable additional material for the study of Hebrew iconography. The question of authenticity Despite the fact that there is no reason whatsoever to doubt the genuineness of the bullae, we are obliged to question their authenticity, simply because they were acquired from licensed antiquities dealers and not uncovered in controlled archaeological excavations. This topic has been raised in the past by Nahman Avigad in his book "Hebrew Bullae from the Time of Jeremiah" in which he published a hoard of 255 Hebrew bullae with no certain provenance, and by the author in his book "Messages from the Past" in which is presented an additional hoard of 109 bullae from the Shlomo Moussaieff collection. All 516 bullae in this collection were examined individually by the author under a powerful microscope and many phenomena which argue for their authenticity were observed. Weather damage was detected on the surfaces, on the edges, in the cracks and on fractured surfaces. Most important, crystals of different shapes and forms are present. These were growing on the surface of the clay during ca. 2700 years, as well from the inside outwards, causing cracks and breaks to the surfaces. Such phenomena are not observed on recently damaged a

Biblical Period Hebrew Bullae. The Josef Chaim Kaufman Collection

Biblical Period Epigraphy; The Josef Chaim Kaufman Collection. Seals, Bullae, Handles

Robert Deutsch

The study deals with the coins issued by the Jews during the First Revolt against Rome. The main literary source describing the events is the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who was also one of the leaders of the revolt. The coins were minted during the first five years, from the outbreak of the war in 66 C.E., till the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. The revolt continued till the capture of the last stronghold of Masada in 73 C.E., but no coins were found bearing a date later than the fifth year. This may indicate that the manufacturing place was in Jerusalem, and once the city was captured by the Romans, the minting had been terminated. The coins were produced in silver and bronze. The silver coins were made of high quality metal and according to high minting standards. All silver coins are bearing the slogan: "Jerusalem the Holy", and indicate their weight unit: "Shekel of Israel", "Half of a shekel" or "quarter of a shekel". All the silver coins, with a single exception, display the same cultic iconography: a chalice on the obverse and a staff with three buds of pomegranates on the reverse. The bronze coins of the second and third years, which carry the slogan: "Freedom of Zion", are abundant and negligently manufactured. The bronze coins of the fourth year, which are of different denominations, are of a slightly higher quality and bear the legend: "To the redemption of Zion". The iconography on these bronze coins is connected with the Jewish cult and festivals. The coins minted by the Jewish rebels during the First Revolt are very important as they are a first-hand evidence independent of literary sources. The past research dealt mainly with the recording of the different types of coins and their variants. The only serious attempt to examine in depth the coinage of the First Jewish Revolt was made recently in a preliminary study by Goldstein and Fontanille (2006). Consequently, the present research aimed at examining various aspects of the First Revolt coinage which have been neglected so far.

Jewish Coinage during the First Revolt Against Rome 66 - 73 CE

History

Ancient Civilizations

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