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While exploring the area around the hotel that he had been evacuated to along the Dead Sea, Nati Toyikar came across an ancient coin dating back to the Hasmonean period.. An 11-year-old boy found a 2,000-year-old coin belonging to the Hasmonean king and high priest Alexander Yanai, Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Tuesday. Nati Toyikar was evacuated from his home, Kibbutz Magen, following Hamas's October 7 attacks. He is currently living in one of the hotels for evacuated residents along the Dead Sea, where, on one of his explorations, he unexpectedly found an ancient coin from the time of Hasmonean...

The ancient burial caves on the outskirts of Jericho date back to the Second Temple era, and are apparently part of the extensive burial grounds of the Hasmonean palace uncovered at the site. The cave was recently exposed in the course of landscaping work carried out by local Arab farmers, who bulldozed the site to prepare the ground for agricultural work. Professor Rachel Hachlili of Haifa University's Zinman Institute of Archaeology, who studied this region, identified these caves as the largest Second Temple-era burial ground in Israel. Hikers visiting the site over the weekend were appalled by what they found:...

There are three principal reasons why the 4 B.C. date has prevailed over 1 B.C. These reasons were articulated by Emil Schürer in A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, also published in the 19th century. First, Josephus informs us that Herod died shortly before a Passover (Antiquities 17.9.3, The Jewish War 2.1.3), making a lunar eclipse in March (the time of the 4 B.C. eclipse) much more likely than one in December. Second, Josephus writes that Herod reigned for 37 years from the time of his appointment in 40 B.C. and 34 years from...

The bullae were used in ancient times for the sealing of letters and scrolls written on papyrus. If a letter arrived with a broken bulla, it meant it had been opened. Unfortunately, those letters and scrolls did not survive through the 2,200 years that have passed, only the seals remained, to tell the story of the archive. Dr. Donald Zvi Ariel of the Israel Antiquities Authority, one of the world's leading experts on bullae, examined a group of 300 bullae and identified on the seal impressions figures of Greek gods such as Athena, Apollo and Aphrodite, as well as cornucopia,...

Drone finds mysterious ancient structure at Israeli military training ground Archaeologists have used a drone to locate a mysterious ancient structure in the heart of an Israeli military training area. The 2,200-year-old structure, which may be a temple or palace from the ancient Idumean culture, was excavated by experts from the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The structure dates back to the Hellenistic period, when Greek influences were strong in the region. An altar adorned with the image of a bull was found inside the structure at Horvat ‘Amuda, in the Lachish region of Israel. The...

A rare cache of silver coins dating to the Hasmonean period, some 2,140 years ago, has been discovered in a salvage excavation in central Israel. The 16 coins, shekels and half-shekels (tetradrachms and didrachms), date from around 126 BCE. They had been minted farther north, in the city of Tyre, and bear the images of the king, Antiochus VII and his brother Demetrius Israeli, stated Avraham Tendler, director of the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority... Closer analysis of the coins showed that the cache contains one or two coins from every year between 135 to 126 BCE... Aside...

New research suggests that this coin marks an eclipse of Jupiter by the moon. It happened on January 17, 121 BC and was visible in Antioch, the capital of the Seleucid Empire. The coin itself show Zeus with a crescent moon above his head and a star like object hovering above the palm of his right hand... On one side is a portrait of Antiochos VIII, the king who minted it. On the reverse is a depiction of Zeus, either nude or half-draped, holding a sceptre in his left hand. Above the god's head is the crescent of the moon,...

The discovery of the Acra last week is "a dream come true" for archaeologists, who have been speculating on the citadel's location for 100 years, the IAA said. The discovery of Acra comes at a delicate time, for it reveals the story of the Maccabees, Antiochus and the coming Antichrist. All this is understood once we connect the dots and see the parallels between the Grecian Empire at the time of the Maccabees harassing God's people and the Antichrist who is also from the same empire (Asia Minor) harassing God's people today.

On Monday afternoon, the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) sent a newsbrief to reporters in Jerusalem, calling for a press conference the following day to announce the “solution to one of the greatest questions in the history of Jerusalem.” Tuesday’s announcement did not disappoint: On site, in Jerusalem’s City of David, archaeologist Doron Ben-Ami announced that the famed Akra (citadel) of Antiochus Epiphanes had been discovered. Up until that announcement, little had been found testifying to the massive Hellenistic intrusion into the city early in the second century B.C. Yet here, at the northwestern portion of the City of David, a...

A recent discovery by the Israel Antiquities Authority in Jerusalem’s City of David may reveal the answer to one of archaeology's most enduring mysteries: the location of the Greek Acra citadel. The exact location of the famous stronghold built by Antiochus IV, to control Jerusalem and monitor activity on the Temple Mount, has long been unknown due to the paucity of architectural remains that can be traced to the Greek presence in Jerusalem. Over the past 100 years of archaeological research in Jerusalem, numerous theories have been put forth identifying the location of the Acra, which was eventually overtaken by...

In 1970, a rock-cut tomb was discovered by workers building a private house in Jerusalem's Givat Hamivtar neighborhood. Inside the two-chambered burial, dating back to the first century BCE, archeologists found a decorated ossuary – a limestone box containing the bones of the deceased – and an enigmatic Aramaic inscription affixed to the wall. "I am Abba, son of Eleazar the priest," proclaimed the 2,000-year-old text. "I am Abba, the oppressed, the persecuted, born in Jerusalem and exiled to Babylon, who brought back Mattathiah son of Judah and buried him in the cave that I purchased." Who was Abba, this...

The ruins of the synagogue at Umm al-Umdan. (Alex Levac) The Hasmoneans were here - maybe By Ran Shapira In late 1995, not far from the city of Modi'in, whose construction had begun a short time earlier, several excavated burial caves were found. The find aroused tremendous excitement initially, mainly because on one of the ossuaries an engraved inscription was interpreted to read "Hasmonean." Had they found a burial plot belonging to the family of the Hasmoneans? When the discovery was announced, the archaeologist digging there, Shimon Riklin, explained that this was not the grave built by Simon the son...