JERUSALEM—American authorities have returned a rare, 2,000-year-old Jewish coin to Israel nearly two decades after it was looted, smuggled and put up for auction in the United States, Israel’s antiquities authority announced Tuesday.
The quarter shekel silver coin, made in the year 69, is one of just two confirmed to exist. The other has been in the British Museum’s collection for a century.
It was minted during the fourth year of the First Jewish Revolt against ancient Rome in the first century A.D. Several other examples of the coin are believed to be in private collectors’ hands.
While other types of coins struck by Jewish rebels during the revolt are more common, this denomination of small silver coinage is “super rare,” said Eitan Klein of the Israel Antiquities Authorities theft prevention unit. Because there are fewer than three known examples, it is legally regarded as an artifact of “national and scientific significance,” he said….