Toto

Methods for Evaluating Ancient Coins Worth their weight in gold

mountainman

There is no doubt in my mind that these modern advances in technological science will yield an increasingly valuable and reliable source for the task of continually revising understandings of ancient history.

Concluding comments

... findings suggest that the Romans had a much closer relationship with this particular [1st century] region than scholars had previously thought.

That relationship is better described in a simple political sense as a very tight and purposeful stranglehold of "Render unto Lord God Caesar the tribute due to Lord God Caesar". Such is the political context of "Early Christian Origins". This very tight and purposeful stranglehold of the Romans over territories (and later - dioceses) of the Roman Empire became more and more critical and inflated as the centuries slowly ticked over. See for example Inflation and the Fall of the Roman Empire - Mises Daily: Monday, September 07, 2009 by Joseph R. Peden.

DCHindley

There is probably an ancient mine, used by the two Jewish kings mentioned for their prutas (the "widow's mite"), that has yet to be discovered. I am not sure how that implies that the Romans ran this show.

I thought archeology suggested they opened mines in the region a century later, when they took over the former Jewish kingdom on the death of Agrippa II around the turn of the 2nd century (that's 100 CE, folks)? Sure the Romans were big on mining (it was immensely profitable, because they used slave labor - men condemned to die by hard labor- although I doubt that the Jewish kings did so), but come on folks, grant those poor Jews the ability to run copper and tin mines. The Book of Watchers in 1 Enoch, which dates to at least the 2nd century BCE, mentions mountains of iron, tin, lead, copper and such in the vicinity. I'm pretty sure they already figured out what to do with the ore.

DCH

DCHindley

DCH,

As usual, sir, you are indolent and stoopid.

*1 Enoch 52:

1 And after those days in that place where I had seen all the visions of that which is hidden –of I had been carried off in a whirlwind and they had borne me towards the west– 2 There mine eyes saw all the secret things of heaven that shall be, a mountain of iron, and a mountain of copper, and a mountain of silver, and a mountain of gold, and a mountain of soft metal, and a mountain of lead. 3 And I asked the angel who went with me, saying, 'What things are these which I have seen in secret?' 4 And he said unto me: 'All these things which thou hast seen shall serve the dominion of His Anointed that he may be potent and mighty on the earth.'

5 And that angel of peace answered, saying unto me: 'Wait a little, and there shall be revealed unto thee all the secret things which surround the Lord of Spirits.

6 And these mountains which thine eyes have seen,
The mountain of iron, and the mountain of copper, and the mountain of silver,
And the mountain of gold, and the mountain of soft metal, and the mountain of lead,

All these shall be in the presence of the Elect One
As wax: before the fire,
And like the water which streams down from above [upon those mountains],
And they shall become powerless before his feet.

7 And it shall come to pass in those days that none shall be saved,
Either by gold or by silver,
And none be able to escape.

8 And there shall be no iron for war,
Nor shall one clothe oneself with a breastplate.
Bronze shall be of no service,
And tin [shall be of no service and] shall not be esteemed,
And lead shall not be desired.

9 And all these things shall be [denied and] destroyed from the surface of the earth,
When the Elect One shall appear before the face of the Lord of Spirits.'

DCH's evil twin, Skippy