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.
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 the Roman Empire 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,” according to Eitan Klein of the Israel Antiquities Authorities theft-prevention unit. He said that because there are fewer than three known examples, it’ legally regarded as an artifact of “national and scientific significance.”
The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which announced the agreement with Israel, estimated the coin’s value at $1 million.
The revolt was the first of several major Jewish uprisings against Rome that lasted from 66 to 73 and included the destruction of Jerusalem and the ancient Jewish Temple in the year 70.
According to the antiquities authority, the coin was one of a hoard stolen by Palestinian looters from the Elah Valley west of Jerusalem — site of the Biblical battle between David and Goliath — in 2002.
The agency said it was smuggled to Jordan and on to Britain, where it received false documentation and was sent on to the United States, where it was slated to be sold at an auction in August 2017 until it was seized by agents for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security before being sold.
The district attorney’s office, which has been involved in several high-profile cases of illegally trafficked antiquities in recent years, took over the case earlier this year.
The artifact was handed over to Israeli officials in a ceremony in New York.
The Israel Antiquities Authority plans to exhibit the coin at its new headquarters, which is under construction.
