Coins excavated from a fortified section of Jerusalem known as The Ophel near the Temple Mount, including a rare silver half-shekel, were from the period of the Great Revolt of 70-66 CE against Rome, providing further insight into Jewish history in ancient Israel.
Archeologists from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Herbert W. Armstrong College in Edmond, Oklahoma, said in a news release Tuesday that most of the coins found were made of bronze and uncovered in a monumental public building dating from the time of the Second Temple.
The rarest coin found was a sliver half-shekel made by Jews. At the time of the Great Revolt, when Jews rebelled against the Roman empire in Judea, leading to the destruction of many Jewish cities — including Jerusalem — only the Roman emperor had the authority to mint silver coins.
"This is the third coin of this type found in excavations in Jerusalem, and one of the few ever found in archeological excavations," researchers said in the news release.
Researchers said during the Great Revolt, the minting of coins by Jews, especially those made of silver, was a political statement and expression of national liberation from Roman rule. Most of the silver coins featured a goblet on one side, with ancient Hebrew script above it, and the year of the revolt.
Depending on its denomination, the side also included an inscription around the border that either read "Israel Shekel," "Half-Shekel," or "Quarter-Shekel." The other side had a branch with three pomegranates, surrounded by an inscription in ancient Hebrew, "Holy Jerusalem."
The half-shekel coins were used to pay a tax on worshipping at the Second Temple.
"Until the revolt, it was customary to pay the half-shekel tax using good-quality silver coins minted in Tyre in Lebanon, known as Tyrean shekels or Tyrean half-shekels," said Dr. Yoav Farhi, the research team's numismatic expert and curator of the Kadman Numismatic Pavilion at the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv.
"These coins held the image of Herakles-Melqart, the principal deity of Tyre, and on the reverse, they featured an eagle surrounded by a Greek inscription, ‘Tyre the holy and city of refuge.' Thus, the silver coins produced by the rebels were intended to also serve as a replacement for the Tyrean coins, by using more appropriate inscriptions and replacing images [of deities, forbidden by the Second Commandment] with symbols."
Farhi said the silver coins from the Great Revolt were the first and the last in ancient times to bear the title "shekel." The name would not be used again until 1980 on Israeli shekel coins produced by the Bank of Israel.
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