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Don\'t believe the hype: Temple treasure - Jona Lendering - 09-26-2006
Our Newsbot has a link to a press release for a new book about the treasures of the Jerusalem temple (more...). One remark from the writer: “I am the first person to prove that the Temple treasures no longer languish in Rome.â€
Re: Don\'t believe the hype: Temple treasure - Ebusitanus - 09-27-2006
The article talks about the Vandals getting away with the loot yet I had read elsewhere that the Visigoths were the ones who took the temple treasures on their trip to Iberia.
Re: Don\'t believe the hype: Temple treasure - Jona Lendering - 09-27-2006
Quote:The article talks about the Vandals getting away with the loot yet I had read elsewhere that the Visigoths were the ones who took the temple treasures on their trip to Iberia.Both stories are correct. The menorah was probably (according to Waagenaar) sent to Carthage and Constantinople; the table on which each day breads were sacrificed was found by Muslims in Toledo in 711. Both objects are shown on the relief in the Honorific Arch of Titus.
Re: Don\'t believe the hype: Temple treasure - Robert Vermaat - 09-27-2006
Quote:The menorah was probably (according to Waagenaar) sent to Carthage and Constantinople
the table on which each day breads were sacrificed was found by Muslims in Toledo in 711.
Sources for that?
Re: Don\'t believe the hype: Temple treasure - Jona Lendering - 09-27-2006
Menorah: see Wagenaar (I gave my copy to a lady in Rome, never got it back), reference was to at least one Byzantine chronicle that mentioned the Menorah in Constantinople before it was sent to Jerusalem.
Table, Toledo: Abdilhakam, History of the Conquest of Spain, 21.
Re: Don\'t believe the hype: Temple treasure - Robert Vermaat - 09-27-2006
So that's a dead end. A mysterious chronicle that would have mentioned the menorah when it was sent to Jerusalem? For what purpose?And an equally late source identifying the table. How? Was it written on the object?
Both sound equally vague and conflicting: if the Goths took the treasure, the Vandals could not have got it 40 years later.
Also, that move to Jerusalem sounds very suspicious.
Nope, I'm not convinced if there's no 5thc. or 6th c. source that describes the objects being taken from Rome by either the Goths or the Vandals. Until then I assume that the Romans melted them down (after all, they represented loot from an old war from yet another rebellious province. Nothing to keep around until the rise of Christianity, more than 200 (!) years later, gave these objects new meaning. That is, IF they were still around, which I find extremely unlikely when you think of all those power-hunghry and cash-strapped Emperors and wannabe-emperors inbetween.
I fear that most accounts of the wandering Temple treasure are Medieval wishful-thinking tales, good for a glass of strong ale by the warmth of the fire.
Re: Don\'t believe the hype: Temple treasure - Jona Lendering - 09-27-2006
Chercking the Encyclopaedia Judaica, the story that the Menorah was sent back to Jerusalem turns out to be not so very mysterious: it's from Procopius, History of the Gothic War (EJ mentions no chapter). Procopius tells that the temple treasures, found in Carthage, were carried in Belisarius' triumphal entry into Constantinople, after which Justinian sent them to Jerusalem, where they were kept in a church.
Procopius knew Belisarius, and was present at the triumph; I think his story is true and I don't know why a modern author would claim to be the first to discover that the treasures were not in Rome. They will have disappeared when the Muslims took Jerusalem, I'd say.
On a side note: the curtain from the temple is mentioned in the talmud Babli (Yoma 57a).
Re: Don\'t believe the hype: Temple treasure - Robert Vermaat - 09-27-2006
OK, now you're talking! That puts a whole different light on things. Wasn't Procopius actually belisarius aide in the vandal campaign?
I'm still surprised that a) the treasure survived all the centuries and the Gothic sack of Rome and b) that it was sent to Jerusalem, but Procopius is what I call a good source on this.
Re: Don\'t believe the hype: Temple treasure - Jona Lendering - 09-27-2006
Quote:OK, now you're talking!I think I had originally mixed up two stories; one about the Menorah and one about the wonders in the Byzantine court as recorded by Liudprand.
The Procopius story is pretty straightforward and offers something of an explanation for the transfer (the Menorah had brought bad luck to every city that owned it: Jerusalem, Rome, Carthage...) and was therefore removed from Constantinople. This may have been the kind of gossip that circulated in Constantinople, and perhaps it's even true.
But to return to the original point, Waagenaar has already collected all these sources, and one can hardly call Procopius an obscure source, so I am still p-ssed that someone claims to be the first to discover the true fate of the temple treasury.
Re: Don\'t believe the hype: Temple treasure - Robert Vermaat - 09-27-2006
Quote:But to return to the original point, Waagenaar has already collected all these sources, and one can hardly call Procopius an obscure source, so I am still p-ssed that someone claims to be the first to discover the true fate of the temple treasury.You're right! Now stop this and go to bed, it's way past our bedtime!
Re: Don\'t believe the hype: Temple treasure - Jona Lendering - 09-28-2006
Yes, maybe, it's 4.15 and I need to rise at 8.30...
Re: Don\'t believe the hype: Temple treasure - Robert Vermaat - 09-28-2006
Quote:Yes, maybe, it's 4.15 and I need to rise at 8.30...I called it quits at 1.30, then I have to get out of bed at 5.45 every working day. :roll:
Re: Don\'t believe the hype: Temple treasure - Ebusitanus - 10-06-2006
So, how come the table ended up in Toledo with the Goths and the Menorah with the Vandals? Maybe the Menorah was managed to be hidden by the romans before the Goths toke the heavy table?
Re: Don\'t believe the hype: Temple treasure - Robert Vermaat - 10-06-2006
So far I doubt that the Goths took any part of the treasure - if the Vandals managed to do that the lot must have been hidden from the Goths. No contemporary source tell us the Goths removed anything of the Temple treasure.
Re: Don\'t believe the hype: Temple treasure - Jona Lendering - 10-06-2006
Quote:No contemporary source tell us the Goths removed anything of the Temple treasure.True, but Abdilhakam is pretty clear that the Table was found when the Arabs captured Toledo in 711.