Cleaning up after the Bar Kokhba revolt

Remains of a Roman bath complex in
Herculaneum.  Photo by Mharrsch.

Israeli archaeologists have uncovered an 1800-year-old bathing pool used by the Roman Tenth Legion and dating from the second and third centuries AD in the old Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem known by the Romans as Aelia Capitolina.

The excavations revealed several plastered bathtubs in the side of the pool, a pipe used to fill it with water, and a white industrial mosaic on the floor of the pool.

The bathhouse tiles, stamped with the symbols "LEG X FR" - Tenth Legion Fretensis - were found in place and the paw print of a dog which probably belonged to one of the soldiers was impressed on the symbol of the legion on one of the roof tiles. - More: News24.com

Image by mharrsch via Flickr

Model of the Temple in Jerusalem at the
Holy Land Experience in Orlando, FL.

The Legio X Fretensis ("Tenth legion of the sea strait"), had been stationed in Judea after the Great Jewish Revolt in 70 CE.  Jewish unrest, however, continued to plague the Roman provincial government.  Hostilities finally erupted again after Hadrian announced he would rebuild the Jews holiest city as a Roman metropolis, ploughing up the remains of Herod's temple (The Second Temple) and replacing it with a temple of Jupiter.  The leader of the revolt,  Simon bar Kokhba was thought to be a Jewish messiah and rebels announced the "era of redemption of Israel".    Over 580,000 Jews were killed during the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE) and 50 fortified towns and 985 villages razed.  Bar Kokhba as well as ten leading members of the Sanhedrin were executed and thereafter Hadrian prohibited Torah law and the Hebrew calendar.

Image by mharrsch via Flickr

Portrait sculpture of the Roman
Emperor Hadrian found at Tivoli

Modern historians have come to view the Bar-Kokhba Revolt as being of decisive historic importance. The massive destruction and loss of life occasioned by the revolt has led some scholars to date the beginning of the Jewish diaspora from this date. They note that, unlike the aftermath of the First Jewish-Roman War chronicled by Josephus, the majority of the Jewish population of Judea was either killed, exiled, or sold into slavery after the Bar-Kokhba Revolt, and Jewish religious and political authority was suppressed far more brutally. After the revolt the Jewish religious center shifted to the Babylonian Jewish community and its scholars.  - Bar Kokhba's Revolt, Wikipedia

         


  

Roman Temple Unearthed in Zippori

"Ruins of a Roman temple from the second century CE have recently been unearthed in the Zippori National Park.The discovery indicated that Zippori, the Jewish capital of the Galilee during the Roman period, had a significant pagan population which built a temple in the heart of the city center. The central location of the temple which is positioned within a walled courtyard and its architectural relation to the surrounding buildings enhance our knowledge regarding the planning of Zippori in the Roman era.

The building of the church on the foundation of the temple testifies to the preservation of the sacred section of the city over time. This new finding demonstrates not only the religious life, culture and society in Roman and Byzantine Zippori, but also that this was a city in which Jews, pagans and later Christians lived together and developed their hometown with various buildings.

The newly discovered temple is located south of the decumanus - colonnaded street - which ran from east to west and was the main thoroughfare in the city during the Roman through Byzantine period. The temple, measuring approximately 24 by 12 meters, was built with a decorated façade facing the street. The temple’s walls were plundered in ancient times and only its foundations remain.

No evidence has been found that reveals the nature of the temple’s rituals, but some coins dating from the time of Antoninus Pius, minted in Diocaesarea (Zippori), depict a temple to the Roman gods Zeus and Tyche. The temple ceased to function at an unknown date, and a large church, the remains of which were uncovered by the Hebrew University excavation team in previous seasons, was built over it in the Byzantine period.

North of the decumanus, opposite the temple, a monumental building was partially excavated this summer. Its role is still unclear, although its nature and size indicate that it was an important building. A courtyard with a well-preserved stone pavement of smooth rectangular slabs executed in high quality was uncovered in the center of the building, upon which were found a pile of collapsed columns and capitals - probably as a result of an earthquake. The decoration on these architectural elements was executed in stucco. Beyond a row of columns, an adjacent aisle and additional rooms were discovered. Two of them were decorated with colorful, geometrical mosaics."