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Exceptional Quality - Highly Important Year One Silver Sela
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Judaea, Bar Kokhba Revolt. Silver Sela (14.21 g), 132-135 CE. Year 1 (132/3 CE). ‘Jerusalem’ (Paleo
Hebrew), tetrastyle façade of the Temple of Jerusalem; show bread table or Ark of the Covenant in chest
form with semicircular lid and short legs, seen from a narrow side. Rev. ‘Year one of the redemption of Israel’
(Paleo-Hebrew), lulav with etrog at left. (Mildenberg 3 (O1/R3); TJC 218; Hendin 1373).
Exceptional quality and nice toning. Superb extremely fine.
$ 60,000
ex Leu 91 (10 May 2004), lot 295.
The Year 1 (132-33 CE) Sela of the Bar Kokhba Revolt classically depicts, on the reverse, the four species of the holiday of Succos
which are observed by Jews even today. According to the Talmud, the four species consist of one citron (etrog), one palm fond (lu
lav) on each side of which are three (3) myrtle twigs (hadassim) and two (2) willow twigs (aravos). However, Rabbi Akiva suggested
that there should be only one myrtle twig on one side and one willow twig on the other side of the palm fond (lulav). His opinion
was not accepted. Nonetheless, since Rabbi Akiva felt that Simon Bar Kokhba was the Jewish Messiah and it may be noted that
on all the selas (tetradrachmas) of Bar Kokhba, on close inspection, there appears to be only one myrtle and one willow as in the
opinion of Rabbi Akiva. Another interesting observation on many of the Bar Kokhba selas (tetradrachms), the depicted etrog has a
constriction in the middle as if it is wearing a belt or “garter”. Many Jews today prefer such an etrog, with a “garter”, on their own
clothes (Hassidic custom). This may be indicative of the belt separating the upper “clean” part of the body from the lower.
The Bar Kokhba War (132-135 CE) broke out when Hadrian decided to refound Jerusalem - still largely ruined from the di-
sastrous Jewish Revolt (66-73 CE) - as the pagan city of Aelia Capitolina. Although Jewish discontent had already erupted into
violence in the Diaspora during the reign of Trajan, the Jews of Judaea seem not to have risen up against the Romans until
this threatened abomination against the site of the Temple and the surrounding Holy City. The leader of this new rebellion,
which took the form of a bloody guerilla war, was Simon bar Kokhba who had messianic pretensions and gained a reputation
as a great warrior. Unfortunately, although Bar Kokhba managed to make Hadrian pay dearly for Aelia Capitolina, when the
emperor assembled an army of six full legions to invade Judaea in 134 CE the rebellion was soon crushed. In punishment al-
most the entirety of Judaea was laid waste by the victorious Romans and the Jewish population destroyed or driven out.
In order to fund the rebellion, Bar Kokhba and his supporters used what circulating coins they could find or capture from the Ro-
mans and restruck them with new types more suitable for their revolutionary purposes. The most remarkable and desirable of the
new types were used for the silver sela overstruck primarily on Syrian and Phoenician tetradrachms. The obverse features a depiction
of the façade of the Jerusalem Temple with an uncertain object inside, which has been variously interpreted as the show bread table
or the Ark of the Covenant. It has been suggested that the Bar Kokhba rebels intended to rebuild the Temple, but the presence of
either the show bread table or the Ark - items lost at the end of the Jewish Revolt or earlier - seems to imply that the image represents
the idea of the Temple to rally support rather than any real edifice planned by the Bar Kokhba rebels. The reverse type looks back to
the coinage of the Jewish Revolt in its depiction of the lulav and etrog associated with the Fest of Tabernacles.