At an excavation in the town of Yavneh in central Israel, archaeologists found a lead slingshot “bullet” with the Greek inscription “victory for Heracles and Hauron.” Experts have suggested that it might be a relic from the revolt against the Syrian Greeks that Hanukkah commemorates. Michael Bachner writes:
The Israel Antiquities Authority said in a statement that the sling bullet found in Yavne’s major archaeological site is 1.7 inches long and around 2,200 years old. Its age places it around the time of the battles between the Seleucid army and the Hasmoneans, who were seeking to prevent the Hellenization of the Jews.
The researchers, however, acknowledged that it isn’t known in what context the slingshot was used, and that there was no conclusive evidence that it even belonged to a Greek soldier. “The tiny lead sling bullets, announcing the imminent victory of the gods of pagan Yavne, is tangible evidence of a fierce battle that took place in Yavne at that time,” they added.
According to Yulia Ustinova of Ben Gurion University, who deciphered the inscription, “the pair of gods Hauron and Heracles were considered the divine patrons of Yavne during the Hellenistic period. The inscription on a sling bullet is the first archaeological evidence of the two guardians of Yavne, discovered inside Yavne itself. Until today, the pair was only known from an inscription on the Greek island of Delos.”
Ustinova said the inscription wasn’t a simple call for the deities’ help, but “a threat directed towards adversaries.
More about: Ancient Israel, Archaeology, Maccabees