Perhaps the most intriguing single find at Gamla is a coin. Only six of its kind are known, all of them found in the western quarters at Gamla, and all from the same pair of dies. It is a very crudely made bronze coin, obviously minted under improvised conditions and by an unskilled artisan. The obverse shows a cup, in clear imitation of the famous Jerusalem silver shekels which made their first appearance in the winter of 66 CE, which are generally accepted as showing one of the Temple utensils (AJC2:106–108). No doubt one of the Jerusalem coins served as a prototype for the Gamla coin, though no examples of the ‘models’ have been found to date.


 The inscription starts around the cup and ends on the reverse, which carries no design. It states, in a mixture of paleo-Hebrew (biblical) and Aramaic (square) characters: "For the redemption of Jerusalem the H)oly) . Ironically, a coin of ‘Akko-Ptolemais was found together with one of these, minted in honor of Vespasian when he landed there some months earlier on his way to crush the revolt.

No doubt these coins were produced during the siege or immediately preceding it, more as a propaganda effort than as currency, to make a political statement to the Jews, and possibly to the Romans.
This coin challenges the traditional view of a fragmented Jewish front that was preoccupied mainly with internal strife and the defense of isolated sites by pockets of rebels, presenting Vespasian with an easy prey of towns and strongholds instead of a unified front . It shows that even under the most difficult conditions, the people of Gamla still remembered the original aims of the revolt, symbolized by ‘the redemption of Holy Jerusalem’.