A bronze coin with dark green patination from the
Bar Kochba Revolt. A beautiful design, simple, elegant and very effective. Coins of the First and Second Revolts are intensely sad to me. Some of the designs- lyres, amphorae, baskets of fruit,
palm trees and bunches of grapes or dates suggest a hopeful happy future that was not to be. Dio Cassius reported that in putting down the revolt nine hundred and eighty five villages we razed and hundreds of thousands killed.
JUDAEA,
Bar Kochba Revolt, (132-135 CE), AE. 21mm (7.04 g), undated (year 3=134/5 CE),
obv. 'For the Freedom of Jerusalem',
palm branch within
laurel wreath,
rev. 'Shim'on', three string
lyre, (S.5688,
Mildenberg 32,
Meshorer 297,
Hendin 735)
Steve
