Tel Aviv

Archaeologists working at a site in the Judean Hills ahead of planned infrastructure work uncovered an extremely rare silver coin dating back 2,550 years to the Persian period, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Wednesday. The Antiquities Authority said the discovery sheds new light on ancient trade practices and the evolution of currency in the region.

The coin is extremely rare, joining only half a dozen coins of its type that have been found in archaeological excavations in the country, said Dr. Robert Kool, head of the Antiquities Authority’s Numismatic Department.

The coin was minted in a period when the use of coins had just begun. The rare find contributes information concerning the way trade was carried out, and the process whereby global commerce moved from payment by weighing silver pieces, to the use of coins, Kool explained. The coin belongs to a group of very early coins that were minted outside Israel, in the regions of ancient Greece, Cyprus and Turkey. In the 6th-5th centuries BCE, such coins began to appear at sites in the Land of Israel.

The coin was found intentionally cut in two. This indicates that the in the 4th Century BCE, it was used as a weighted piece of silver rather than a coin, even though silver coins were already current in that period, the Antiquities Authority explained. Later, more sophisticated techniques produced coins with protruding rather than sunken stamps, said the Antiquities Authority’s Semyon Gendler, who unearthed the coin. Also found was a one-shekel weight from the First Temple period.