Bar Kokhba Coins

In 1952, a man in Clay City found a strange coin in his hog pen, in part of a field alongside Route 15 - a field that had just recently been plowed for the very first time. The coin was later determined to be from the Bar Kokhba rebellion, in which Simon Bar Kokhba led the Jews to split away from Roman Empire and form a short-lived sovereign state, which was re-conquered by the Romans in the year 135. His name is Aramaic for "Son of a Star" and was intended as a reference to Numbers 24:17, "there shall step forth a star out of Jacob."

The mysterious coin was the subject of an article by Joe Creason in the Louisville Courier-Journal on July 12, 1953. However, in later years, several experts (including the curator of numismatics at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem) determined that the coin was a fake - but a real fake..... the replica was indeed old in itself, and it has been postulated that it was made for tourists in the very early 20th century as a souvenir of the Holy Land.

But how did it up buried in a field in the middle of nowhere in an extremely remote part of Kentucky? Good question.

And yet, other Bar Kokhba coins have been found in our state, inexplicably. An article in the February 1980 issue of the journal Current Anthropology devotes extensive attention to the subject. Professor J. Huston McCulloch of Ohio State University has also been researching the Kentucky Bar Kokhba phenomenon for some time, and is aware of another Bar Kokhba coin that was dug up in Louisville in 1932, and yet another one found in Hopkinsville in 1967. Still others have turned up in other southern states.

Prof. McCulloch, incidentally, is also a leading authority on two anomalous artifacts known as the Bat Creek Stone (discovered in 1889 inside an undisturbed burial mound in Eastern Tennessee) and the Grave Creek Stone (found in 1838 inside an Adena burial mound in Moundsville, West Virginia). Both of these amazing stone tablets contain writing - possibly Iberian runes on the latter and definitely Hebrew on the former. Though found not in Kentucky but in bordering states, they most certainly are part of the same confusing labyrinth of enigmas surrounding the mound-building civilizations that once inhabited this general region before state lines were drawn.

Standing Stones in Jeffersontown

Once upon a time, the area that's now the city of Jeffersontown, KY was teeming with wildlife, especially bears, deer, wildcats, and buffalo. Some of the existing paved roads today began as ancient traditional trails and pathways blazed by buffalo as they stomped the same path year after year to the salt licks. These pathways were
etched into the wilderness by the buffalo long before humans set foot on this soil.

Over the years, there have been persistent rumors about an American Indian civilization, or several civilizations, that once erected standing stones in Jeffersontown, KY. Some versions of the myth describe them Stonehenge-style, while other reports describe them carved as totems, to resemble animals and strange beasts, possibly to commemorate these same critters that ruled this region and created the first corridors through these woods.

Both types of Indian-related stonework are common in Kentucky and its surrounding "dark and bloody ground" area. Although there's little traces today of these civilizations and their standing stones, we do have some possible glimpses into the past.

Following the roads towards Jeffersontown's Northeastern edge, we were intrigued by the large interestingly shaped rocks that dot the landscape. Much of this land today is occupied by an industrial park, but its tenants are spaced far apart and plenty of open green areas remain.
Many of the stones appear to have been moved into their current position as roadside decoration, but others are off the beaten path and some are now almost entirely buried with only a small bit protruding. It would appear that the stones were originally here when the industrial park was built, and then some of the stones were simply made use of as decoration.

A few visits to local businessmen in the area seem to confirm this: we couldn't find anyone who knew for sure about the prehistory of the giant rocks in their factory's front yard, but many could say with some degree of certainty that the rocks were not shipped in for decoration but pre-existed on the property when the buildings were
built.

The stones themselves certainly lend themselves to the myth of the Jeffersontown indian totems - many have a strikingly obvious resemblance to animals - especially turtles and bears, which would in fact be two of the key animals one would likely expect to be represented. These more exciting examples tend to be ones that have been moved out into the front yards for display, but the nearby area is pockmarked with plenty more that are hidden, and are probably still in their original locations.
Unfortunately, there's no really dependable way to know for sure. After all, there's no point in carbon dating a rock. Erosion from weather and creeks can make many a rock look zoomorphic with the passage of enough time and water. In fact, some say the Native Americans would actually seek out such large stones peculiarly shaped by water flow, either using them as is or using them as the starting point for their own additional sculpting. The presence of Amerind markings and petroglyphs would help, but even that doesn't actually prove anything in a concrete (no pun intended) scientific way.

In the meantime, we can continue the search for more relevant artifacts, and enjoy these curious stones for what they are, at face value.