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A 2,100 - year - old cache of 160 coins has been break at an archaeological site in the Jordan Valley .
The coin particular date to the sovereignty of Alexander Jannaeus ( circa 103 to 76 B.C. ) , who was both a high priest and aking of the Hasmoneans — a dynasty of Jewish kings who ruled a land that encompassed what is now Israel , the West Bank and parts of other neighboring areas . This land started in 167 B.C. , when Jewish inhabitants of the area uprise up against the Seleucid Empire and succeed in take over part of it . During the first century B.C. , theRoman Republicconquered the Hasmoneans ' territory and allowed King Herod to establish his own kingdom .
A picture of the coin hoard, which dates back about 2,100 years to the Hasmonean dynasty.
The coins have eight pointed stars grave on them and contain both Aramaic and Greek inscription , which give the name of Alexander Jannaeus and say the coins were minted in the twenty-fifth class of his sovereignty , the University of Haifa describe in a translatedstatement . This eccentric of coin was minted in 80 or 79 B.C.
" It is a very common coin type,“Shay Bar , an archaeologist at the University of Haifa who is start the squad , told Live Science in an electronic mail . However , Hasmonean coins are n’t typically find in large hoard in the region , making this finding rarefied , he noted .
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(Image credit: Photo courtesy Shay Bar)
This picture shows where the coin stash was found .
The archeologic site where the coin stash was discovered . It was once a room station for multitude traveling to a fort in the Jordan Valley .
Why was the hoard left in the Jordan Valley?
Archaeologists found the hoard by a break up bulwark in the food formulation area of a building , which may suggest at why it was forget there . The building was at the archaeological site of Rujm es - Sia in the Jordan Valley , which was a way station for people traveling to the nearby Hasmonean fortress of Sartaba , the statement said .
However , why the stash was place there is unknown , Bar said .
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(Image credit: Photo courtesy Shay Bar)
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" The inquiry of deposit intent is very hard to resolve in archaeology , " Bar enounce . It may have been hidden during a troubled time , Bar read . It ’s also possible that it was n’t blot out at all ; it may have been part of a cash desk for multitude sell food , Bar said . Yet another possibility is that it was put in the bulwark as an offering or foundation sediment , something that was seldom done at this point in time , said Bar .
Excavation of the land site and investigating of the remains are ongoing . An analytic thinking of the coin cache will be published in the future .
