A rare coin minted by the Jewish rebels during the Great Revolt against Rome toward the end of the Second Temple Period will be handed back to Israel some 2,000 years after it was introduced into circulation as a sign of defiance against the world's superpower at the time, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.
US authorities took the coin from collectors in 2017 after they got word of an attempt to sell it an auction in Denver, where it was to be sold for as much as $1 million. However, talks with Israel over its fate encountered various legal pitfalls that were only overcome in the summer.
"Experts say the coin, a quarter-shekel piece featuring palm branches and a wreath and dated to AD 69, is among the rarest coins remaining from the bloody Jewish uprising against imperial Rome. The Roman response included the sacking and burning of the Temple Mount in AD 70 and, in AD 73, the demise of the last Jewish holdouts at Masada," The New York Times. "The minting of such coins by Jews during the rebellion was considered a major statement of sovereignty by people whom the Romans had forbidden from issuing silver coins," it said.
Ilan Hadad, an archeologist at the Israeli Antiquities Authority, was quoted in the Times as saying the coin should be considered "a national treasure" that "has strong religious and political symbolism to Jews and Christians around the world."
"Coins like this were a very in-your-face declaration of independence," he said. "They made them by scratching out the images of emperors on Roman silver coins and restamping them."
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