After the British Mandate ended in 1947, Palestine was partitioned. The state of Israel was established in 1948, encompassing the area from Galilee on the north to the Negev desert in the south. The territory along the western side of the Jordan River and the northwest shore of the Dead Sea was under Jordanian rule from 1948 until 1967, when Israel took this territory during the Six-Day War. This territory is sometimes called the West Bank (referring to the west bank of the Jordan River), the Occupied Territories (occupied by Israel since 1967), and Judea and Samaria (a revival of the ancient names of these districts that is preferred by some Jews and Israelis). The border between the territories that were under Israeli and Jordanian rule between 1948 and 1967 is called the Green Line. The Green Line divided Jerusalem into two halves, and terminated to the south just above Ein Gedi. In other words, between 1948 and 1967 Jerusalem was a divided city: East Jerusalem belonged to Jordan and West Jerusalem belonged to Israel.
Archaeology is inextricably bound up with complex, current political realities. For example, the site of Qumran was excavated (and most of the Dead Sea Scrolls were found) when the West Bank was under Jordanian rule, and de Vaux's excavations were conducted under the auspices of the Jordanian government. Therefore, any eventual political settlement will have to decide who has the legal rights to the Dead Sea Scrolls and the archaeological finds from de Vaux's excavations at Qumran: Israel (which currently has possession of the site of Qumran and most of the scrolls), the Palestinians (assuming a Palestinian state is established in this region), or Jordan. Protestors at a recent exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada, claimed that Israel has no legal right to the scrolls and therefore is not entitled to export them for exhibit. Another example: excavations conducted by Israelis in parts of East Jerusalem, such as the City of David and the area around the Temple Mount, have been the subject of controversy because some argue that the Israelis do not have legal rights to this land, as it was taken during war and was not ceded to them as part of a negotiated settlement.
Alluding to Jerusalem and the temple. The Bar-Kokhba rebels increased the insult to Rome by overstriking (reminting) Roman coins. Frequently the original Roman designs and inscriptions are visible beneath those added by the Jewish rebels. These coins, decorated with sacred vessels such as chalices and kraters, instruments such as trumpets and lyres, and ritual objects such as the lulav and ethrog clearly proclaimed the revolt's goal — the overthrow of Roman rule, the reestablishment of Jewish independence under the leadership of a messianic figure, and the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple. One series of coins
Is decorated with the earliest surviving depiction of the Jerusalem temple. Some Jews living at the time of the Bar-Kokhba Revolt would have remembered the appearance of the temple, which had been destroyed a little more than sixty years earlier. Therefore, scholars assume that this depiction accurately depicts the main features of the second temple. The coin shows a flat-roofed building with four columns in front, framing an arched element that might be a doorway or the showbread table inside.
Like the coins of the First Revolt, the Bar Kokhba coins are inscribed in the paleo-Hebrew script with Hebrew-language slogans alluding to Jerusalem and the temple, such as “for the freedom of Jerusalem" or “Jerusalem" (the latter surrounds the depiction of the temple facade). Some coins are inscribed with the name of the revolt's leader, Simeon. Others are inscribed “Eleazar the priest," implying that Bar-Kokhba was planning ahead and had appointed a high priest to officiate in the rebuilt temple. However, there is no evidence that construction of a temple building commenced before the revolt ended. In fact, recent studies suggest that the Jewish rebels never managed to gain control of Jerusalem (which was occupied by the Tenth Legion when the revolt began).
Recommended Reading
Hanan Eshel, “The Bar Kochba Revolt, 132-135," in Steven T. Katz (ed.), The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume IV, The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period (New York: Cambridge University, 2006), 105-27.
Miriam Pucci Ben Zeev, Diaspora Judaism in Turmoil, 116/117 C. E.: Ancient Sources and Modern Insights (Leuven, the Netherlands: Peeters, 2005).
Peter Schafer (ed.), The Bar Kokhba War Reconsidered (Tubingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2003).
Yigael Yadin, Bar-Kokhba: The Rediscovery of the Legendary Hero of the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1971).
World History
