Haaretz reports on this new discovery:
An underwater survey conducted by divers off Tel Dor, on the Mediterranean Sea, yielded an astonishing find: a rare Roman inscription mentioning the province of Judea – and the name of a previously unknown Roman governor, who ruled the province shortly before the Bar-Kochba Revolt.
Historians had thought that based on Roman records, the leaders Rome imposed on its provinces were all known.
The rock with the 1,900-year-old inscription was exposed by a storm on the seabed at a depth of just 1.5 meters in the bay of Dor. The town had been a thriving port in Roman times that even minted its own coins, which proudly proclaimed the city to be “Ruler of the Seas”.
Found by Haifa University archaeologists surveying the remains of the ancient Roman harbor at Dor in January 2016, the rock, 70 by 65 centimeters in size, was partly covered in sea creatures when it was found.
The article continues with many large photos. For more information, see the University of Haifa press release, the Times of Israel article, and blog postings by Ferrell Jenkins and David Graves.
HT: Charles Savelle, Joseph Lauer, Agade
