December 3 127 – 12 Kislev 3888
A document detailing the estate of Babatha daughter of Simon – including four date groves in Maoza, a port town at the southern end of the Dead Sea – was drawn up and signed as part of a provincial census ordered by the Roman governor. Like other deeds from Babatha’s archive, a package of documents discovered in the Cave of Letters in the Judean Desert, this one indicates that women did business and owned property in ancient times. Babatha herself seems to have been a resident of Maoza who may have moved after her second marriage from Nabatean territory to Judea and was caught up in the events of the Bar Kokhva revolt. We’ll never know whether she too was among the fugitives whose bones were discovered in the surrounding area, or whether she escaped, living her precious documents behind.
Nadav1Scroll from the Babatha Archive