Hello! My name is Ross Thomas
I'm a curator in the department of Greece and Rome
and welcome to my corner!
I would like to talk to you today about
the Second and Third Jewish Revolts
and I have a couple of objects here
which have been the subject of study by British Museum curators and our teams.
So we have on the right here
a lovely Egyptian figurine
which shows a bearded emperor
wearing Roman legionary uniform
and carrying the gladius sword
and he's worrying with this sword a prisoner.
So scholars now generally agree
on the identification of this character as
the emperor Hadrian either
putting down the Second Jewish Revolt
in around 117 AD
or putting down the Third Jewish Revolt
between 132-136 AD.
The Second Jewish Revolt started during Trajan's campaign of Mesopotamia
where he conquered large parts of what is now Syria and Iraq.
While he was progressing eastwards
there were a series of revolts in different city-states
including Cyrene in Northern Africa
and Alexandria where there were significant Jewish populations.
Trajan then died
and Hadrian became emperor in 117 AD.
And one of the first things he had to do
was to suppress this revolt.
And then a second revolt starts
which is more of a nationalistic revolution of the people of Judea
against the Romans
trying to expel Roman control.
And this occurs around 132 AD
and continues until 135/136 AD
when again Hadrian suppresses the revolt.
The figurine is mould made
It's made from Egyptian Nile silt.
It comes from Lower Egypt
and he is shown here also with a big symbol
an important symbol of victory
the eagle here on his left shoulder
It looks a bit like a parrot
but I can assure you it is actually an eagle.
and it's a symbol of victory
it's also a symbol of Zeus or Jupiter
which was thought to be one of the reasons for the Third Jewish Revolt
was Hadrian's building of a large Jupiter temple in Jerusalem
This piece shows a series of different bits of iconography
So it shows a fully armoured Roman emperor
but he's in the stance of a Egyptian pharaoh or god
but on his shoulder he's got the eagle
which is also a symbol of the earlier Hellenistic dynasty of Egypt
So you've got Greek, Roman and Egyptian
all represented in this figurine.
suppressing the Jewish Revolt
I'd like to talk about the second piece
and this is a fragment of Roman tile or brick
And you can see here a rectangular stamp with Latin letters
L. E. X. F. R.
So this describes the legio or legion 10 Fretensis
which is the '10th Legion of the Strait'
So this is a legion that was founded around 41-40 BC by Octavian
who later became the first Roman emperor.
And they were very active in the civil war at the end of the Roman Republic
before the founding of the Roman Empire.
But they were moved to Judea
they were based in Jerusalem
until the 3rd century AD
And this device is very specifically something that they produced in Jerusalem
during the period between 130 or 132, and 136 AD
So the period immediately preceding, during or right at the end of the period of the Third Jewish Revolt.
So excavations in Jerusalem have found the workshops where these were made.
Legions weren't just a fighting force
an army fighting on behalf of the emperor
they also had engineers and builders.
As the Romans sought to build - or rebuild - Jerusalem
in their image
which of course was not very popular amongst the local population
the Roman building campaigns required other parts of Jerusalem to be knocked down
and it might also be this that was part of the reason for the Revolt.
Put together, these pieces tell us about the dramatic events
that ultimately saw the Jewish populations of Judea and Egypt
in Alexandria specifically
turned them from a powerful and influential eastern Mediterranean peoples
into a minority that was scattered and persecuted
across the Roman empire and beyond
and it's only through the ongoing study of our collections here in the basements
which we've been doing with our volunteers
very recently
that we're able to continue to study these pieces
and inform our research projects and our displays.
And even some objects that seem quite fragmentary
and not particularly interesting at a first look
can actually tell us a very specific story about the past.
Thank you for watching.
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