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Judaea, Bar Kokhba Revolt. Æ Small Bronze (5.63 g), 132-135 CE. Year 1 (132/3 CE). ‘Eleazar the priest’
(Paleo-Hebrew), seven-branched palm tree with two bunches of dates. Rev. ‘Year one of the redemption of
Israel’ (Paleo-Hebrew), bunch of grapes with branch and small leaf. (Mildenberg 147 (O1/R1); TJC 224;
Hendin 1380a). Attractive desert brown and green patina. Superb extremely fine.
$ 750
Purchased privately from Superior at the NYINC, December 1988.
This example of the year 1 small bronze denomination exhibits the irregularity of a retrograde paleo-Hebrew inscription. Evidently
the engraver did not understand that he needed to cut the letters backwards into the die in order for them to appear properly on the
finished coin. Also interesting is that it shares its reverse die with the silver zuzim of year 1, cf. (Mildenberg series II, 1, die O1.
63
Judaea, Bar Kokhba Revolt. Æ Small Bronze (5.01 g), 132-135 CE. Year 1 (132/3 CE). ‘Eleazar the priest’
(Paleo-Hebrew), seven-branched palm tree with two bunches of dates. Rev. ‘Year one of the redemption of
Israel’ (Paleo-Hebrew), bunch of grapes with branch and small leaf. (Mildenberg 149 (O1/R3); TJC 224a;
Hendin 1380c).
Very rare - only five examples cited in Mildenberg.
Dark earthen-green patina.
Extremely fine.
$ 600
ex NFA XXVI (14 August 1991), lot 160.
This small bronze denomination variety of the first year (132/3 CE) of the Bar Kochba War is notable for the variant form of its
paleo-Hebrew obverse inscription.