Often the Israel Antiquities Authority delays announcing certain discoveries until a relevant holiday—Hanukkah is a favorite—is approaching. But the excavation on Friday of a hoard of roughly 160 Hasmonean-era coins is what the researchers who found them call an “archaeological Hanukkah miracle.” Gavriel Fiske reports:
The coins were discovered in what is thought to have been a roadside station, on what was then a main road along Nahal Tirzah that ascended to the Alexandrion Fortress, also known as Sarbata, north of Jericho in what is now the West Bank.
The coins were dated by experts to the reign of “King Alexander Jannaeus, whose Hebrew name was Jonathan. . . . He reigned from 104–76 BCE. He was the son of Johanan Hyrcanus, [and] the grandson of Simon the Hasmonean (brother of Judah Maccabee),” the statement said, noting that the Alexandrion Fortress, near where the coins were discovered, was built by Jannaeus.
More about: Ancient Israel, Archaeology, Hasmoneans