Babatha bat Shimʿon

In producing my range of models of the Jewish Revolts against Rome, I was conscious that these conflicts encompassed the whole of Judaean society. I was also keen to showcase some of the more famous individuals we know about from these conflicts and share their histories. With this in mind one of the miniatures we are releasing this year is Babatha, a model of one of the most fascinating (in my opinion) women of the Ancient World. As with all our figures she is being sculpted by Alan Marsh.

Whilst not a world-renowned political figure such as Cleopatra, Nefertiti or Boudicca, Babatha is important precisely because she was “ordinary”. Normally the lives of the ordinary person are forgotten, hidden in the mists of time, unrecorded by chroniclers. This is especially so of ordinary people who lived in the ancient period, and even more so for women, living as they were in a male-dominated world.

Babatha however is one of the few exceptions due to the chance survival of a veritable treasure trove of artefacts in a cave near the Dead Sea. In 1960 a leather pouch containing a number of legal documents and letters dating back to the time of the Bar Kokhba War were located by the renowned Israeli archaeologist Yigael Yadin. These documents offer an unprecedented insight into the life of Babatha, a wealthy middle-class Jewish woman. In them are recorded property disputes, land titles, guardianship details and so on, all of which relate to the life of Babatha. Through these documents she comes to life as a resilient, self-assured woman confident in her rights and willing to fight through the courts to ensure she retains them. Because of these documents, we know more about Babatha than about any other ordinary woman of the ancient world.

Sadly, the circumstances in which they were found by Yavin suggests an unhappy ending. Located in what came to be known as the Cave of Letters, this seems to have been a refuge used by Jews fleeing from Roman soldiers, a common tactic used during the revolts. Alongside her pouch of documents were found other personal items that may have belonged to her, including sandals, a decorated knife, a sickle, yarn, cloths, and, poignantly, a key to what may have been one of her properties. The fact she had carried all of this including the crucial legal documents with her into hiding suggests she hoped to return to her pre-revolt life once the fighting was over. These items were placed in a hole and sealed. Because these were not retrieved later, combined with the discovery of twenty skeletons nearby dating to the same period, it is likely that Babatha was killed (or enslaved) during the revolt, although we do not know her ultimate fate.

Our model of Babatha depicts her entering the cave, carrying her satchel and other items, using an oil lamp to find her way before hiding her goods.