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A small shovel started it all. In the summer of 1996, at the excavation of the Galilee site of Bethsaida (which we codirect), we uncovered a small bronze incense shovel. Others like it were used in the imperial cult throughout the Roman Empire. Although not impressive in size (a mere 8 inches long), the shovel is expertly crafted: The handle is molded in the shape of a Corinthian capital; two leaves in the corners of the rectangular pan give it the appearance of a horned altar; and five concentric circles on the pan itself provide elegant decoration (see photo, p. 27). The discovery was so noteworthy that BAR named it a Prize Find in its 1997 "Dig Issue."
We discovered the shovel among first-century C.E. remains, near a building that we have identified as a Roman temple. So far, so good: a ritual object resembling others known to have been used in the Roman imperial cult, found near a Roman temple. But then an intriguing problem arose. The shovel looked strangely familiar. Forty years ago, on one of Israel's most-storied archaeological expeditions, Yigael Yadin discovered a shovel almost exactly like ours in an isolated Judean Desert cave near the Dead Sea known as the Cave of Letters. The two shovels were so much alike that for a short time we thought they might have been cast from the same mold.
But Yadin found his shovel in a context that he associated with followers of Bar-Kokhba, the leader of the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome (132-135 C.E.), who fled to the cave during the last desperate months of the uprising. Yadin made several very important finds in the Cave of Letters, all of which he dated to the second century C.E.: a hoard of bronze objects that included the shovel, a clutch of letters written by BarKokhba to his commanders (which gave the cave its name) and a collection of legal and personal documents known as Babatha's archive.* How could two identical shovels come from, in one instance, a firstcentury C.E. Roman temple** and, in the other instance, the desert hideout of second-century C.E. Jewish rebels?
The two of us are divided over how to answer this question. Richard suggests that the Cave of Letters...