THE HIGH-PRIEST'S BREASTPLATE 285
to
any Jewish vessels or jewels that may have been secured by the
conquerors. In this case, however, it is still probable that these
precious objects fell into the hands of the Mohammedans who captured
Jerusalem in the same year in which they took Ctesiphon.
One
circumstance which may have contributed to the preservation of these
gems in their original form after they fell into the hands of the
Romans is the fact that each one was engraved with the name of one of
the Jewish tribes, the inscription being probably in the older form of
Hebrew writing, which was used in the coinage even as late as the last
revolt in 137 a.d. Hence,
recutting would have been necessary to fit them for use as ornaments,
a process not easily accomplished, and involving a great loss of size.
We must also bear in mind that the intrinsic value of the gems may not
have been so great as many suppose, since all of them were probably of
the less perfect forms of the precious and semi-precious varieties. It
is very likely that the enthusiastic statements of Josephus in this
connection were dictated by national pride, or arose from the tendency
to exaggeration so common among the Oriental writers. Certainly, if
the breastplate known to Josephus was made not long after the return of
the Jews from the Babylonian Captivity, their financial resources at
the time of its fabrication were quite restricted.
Admitting
as a possibility that the Arabs may have secured possession of the
breastplate, how would they have regarded it? The heroes of the Old
Testament, and especially Moses, were such sacred personalities in the
eyes of Mohammedans that this relic would have been as precious for
them as for us. However, the victorious Arabs who overran the Sassanian
Empire, although filled with religious zeal, were no students of
archaeology, and
