As part of a project to publicize previously unpublished discoveries, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) recently detailed the 1971 excavation of an 1,800-year-old Roman-era tomb holding the bodies of a group of young girls, filled with gold objects. JNS reports:
The remains of a lead coffin were found on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem containing jewels including gold earrings, a hairpin, a gold pendant, and gold beads, carnelian beads, and a glass bead. . . . Ayelet Dayan, Ayelet Gruber, and Yuval Baruch of the Israel Antiquities Authority, who carried out the research on the jewelry, believe that the very valuable items that bear the symbols of Luna, the Roman moon goddess, accompanied the girls in their lifetime, and were buried with them to continue to protect them in the afterlife.
Late Roman Jerusalem—renamed Aelia Capitolina—had a mixed population that reached the city after the destruction of the Second Temple and the evacuation of the Jewish residents. People from different parts of the Roman Empire settled in the city, bringing with them a different set of values, beliefs, and rituals. The pagan cult of the city’s new population was rich and varied, including gods and goddesses, among them the cult of Luna.
Read more on JNS: https://www.jns.org/jerusalem-burial-cave-yields-1800-year-old-gold-against-evil-eye/