Indeed, while one of the first purposes of the Maccabees had been to fight the “Hellenized” Jews, the Hasmonean kings had no qualms about adopting the nice accoutrements of Hellenistic life ...

Hyrcania is mentioned in Josephus' book "Antiquities of the Jews" as one of the three fortresses that queen Salome Alexandra, wife of Alexander Janneaus (the second Hasmonean king who ruled the ...

Until now, it has been suggested by archaeologists that the ruling Hasmonean dynasty did so between 111 BCE and 107 BCE. But according to new Israeli/German research, based on the remains of ...

A team of archaeologists from the University of Haifa discovered a rare hoard of approximately 160 coins during an excavation ...

In what they called an “archaeological Hanukkah miracle,” a University of Haifa team discovered on Friday a rare hoard of some 160 coins, dating from the Hasmonean period, during a dig in the ...

Welcome to 100 BCE. Like today, the Land of Israel during Hasmonean times had significant non-Jewish populations. At the beginning of the dynasty, Simon Maccabee drew his borders to keep the realm ...

The first 50 ultra-Orthodox soldiers were drafted for regular service in the Israel Defense Forces’ new Haredi brigade, known as the Hasmonean Brigade, the military said on Sunday. The ...

The ancient route led to the Alexandrion Fortress thousands of years ago; an outpost erected during the Hasmonean period in the first century B.C. The coins were discovered on grounds which once ...

Despite over 100 years of exhaustive excavations throughout Jerusalem’s City of David, archeologists have been unable to find a single significant structure from the Hasmonean period ...

Twenty ancient coins, including a coin of Matthieu Antigonus, one of the last of the Hasmonean kings, were seized in a joint operation Tuesday evening in eastern Jerusalem by Israel Police from ...

The ancient books rejected by the Talmud, namely the two books of Maccabees and Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews, present Hanukkah as a celebration of the Hasmonean military victory over the ...