Tel Shiloh and A Coin Find

Today, the excavation at Tel Shiloh revealed what is known as a Bar Kochba coin [?]and see pgs. 6-8 here) [but please see UPDATE below]:

As soon as I get a better quality photograph, it will go up. [see below]

I thought it was not to be publicized but it came across my screen so you, too, now know.

The coin has the famous "For the Redemption of Jerusalem" inscription, it seems, although what year of the Second Great Revolt against Rome, I do not know.

Questions:

- was Shiloh involved in the Revolt? were there Jews here at that time?

- did Jews flee from Judea to hide from the Romans (and di they, out of desperation, head for a former sacred location, where the Tabernacle once was?)?

- did the coin belong to a Roman who dropped it here (why was he here?)?

- was it passed down to a Byzantine monk (a bit improbable but not impossible)?

Since I do not know in what layer of earth, whether in a piece of pottery, or a wall, or a room, you'll just have to wait, along with me.

In any case, it is just great that it was found two days before Jerusalem Day celebrations.

Remember, to get to Jerusalem one needs to go through Shiloh first.

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UPDATE

Have just been informed the following:

Two coins were uncovered today in a water cistern.  On one coin could be discerned two Hebrew letters:  ש   ת   and the archaeologist thinks actually this is from the Great Revolt period, not Bar Kochba [or at least minted at the time.  whether the coin was dropped at that time or later, we cannot know for sure (unless it was found in a jug or with another artifact that can be reliably dated)].  They are bronze and quite worn away.  We'll have to wait for laboratory cleaning.  In the cistern were considerable pieces of pottery from the end of the Second Temple period as well as glass pieces and additional bronze artifacts attesting to a Jewish presence. The assumption is that from the First Temple period until the Bar Kochba Revolt, a Jewish community maintained a presence at Shiloh in a continuous fashion [we know the Bible story in I Kings 14 of Achiyah at Shiloh during Yerov'am's reign. And, too, the men of Samaria and Shiloh going to Jerusalem, according to Jeremiah 41, "4 And it came to pass the second day after he had slain Gedaliah, and no man knew it, 5 that there came certain men from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria, even fourscore men, having their beards shaven and their clothes rent, and having cut themselves, with meal-offerings and frankincense in their hand to bring them to the house of the LORD"].

New, better pictures:

P.S.  It seems my incorrect original information stemmed from an unauthorized source who had taken an unauthorized picture and Favebooked it from where yet a thrid party picked it up and then passed it along.

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