This paper presents metal utensils from the time of the Bar Kokhba Revolt that were discovered at Moran 1 site in the Southern Judaean Foothills.
Moran 1 site contains sparse remains of buildings with underground cavities beneath them. In 1981, a large hiding complex was examined here, the first one to be discovered in this region. In February 2000, we re-examined the site. On the surface we found twenty bronze coins, dated from the first to the eighth century CE. A bronze Bar Kokhba’s coin was discovered at the entrance shaft to the hiding complex. In one of the chambers of the complex, three metal objects were found: an elbow key, an iron strigil and a bronze mirror. The objects were hidden together in the complex, during the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132-135 CE). The mirror’s back was ornamented with attachments cast in bronze in the form of busts of Isis and Sarapis. The gods faces were deliberately rubbed, apparently by pious Jews, in order to strip them of their idolatrous status, as described in the Mishnah (Abodah Zarah 4:5). The article describes the objects and offers interpretations as to their meaning. Did the artifacts belong to a man or a woman who lived at the site? Strigils and mirrors are associated with bathhouses or gymnasia in the Graeco-Roman world - seemingly far removed from Jewish life in a remote village in the early second century CE. Or was the strigil taken, along with the bronze mirror, as booty from Roman soldiers stationed in the Jewish region, at the beginning of the revolt? Were Roman army units billeted in the Judaean rural areas during the first-second centuries CE?