Summary: Silver pieces discovered demonstrate robust trade routes and use of currency in Israel and the surrounding areas, 500 years earlier than previously thought.
Abraham listened to Ephron, and Abraham weighed out for Ephron the silver that he had named in the hearing of the Hittites, four hundred shekels of silver, according to the weights current among the merchants. – Genesis 23:16 (ESV)
Earliest Evidence of Hoarded Silver
Israeli archaeologists announced last week the discovery of the earliest evidence of silver used as currency in the Levant, an area including present-day Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and southern Turkey. This type of silver would have been what Abraham used to purchase land in Canaan from the Hittites.
Uncovered in various excavations in Israel’s Shiloh, Megiddo and Gezer, as well as Tel el-‘Ajjul in the Gaza Strip, the silver pieces date back around 3,600 years to the Middle Bronze Age, about 500 years before prior estimates, said researchers from the University of Haifa and Hebrew University.
Researchers were aware of the use of silver as a means of payment in Mesopotamia as early as the third millennium BC. However, in the biblical land of Canaan (the southern Levant region), it was believed using silver for trade didn’t become common until the Iron Age, starting from the 12th century BC.
“This is the earliest evidence of hoarded silver,” the University of Haifa’s Dr. Tzilla Eshel told The Times of Israel. The discovery, published in the Journal of Archeological Science, provides evidence that ancient cities in the area had a much more developed long-distance trade relationship and local economy than previously supposed.
What Could a Shekel of Silver Buy in Bible Times?
Silver relics such as these were cut from broken pieces of silver ingots, jewelry, tableware, or other pieces of scrap silver and weighed on scales against standardized weights to determine its value. This was used as a form of payment before official coins began to be minted. Today, the German word hacksilber (also referred to as hacksilver) is used for this kind of silver fragment currency, which was even common among the vikings during the Middle Ages.
The biblical currency of the “shekel” was originally a weight measurement. According to the Babylonians, 1 shekel was about 16 grams. A gram of silver equaled approximately 3 days of work, so it would take nearly 50 days to earn 1 shekel of silver.
Because silver was so precious, it was used only for large purchases, such as land. Everyday currency more likely used wool, grain, or other metals, measured to the shekel weight.
The Bible talks about Abraham paying for land in Canaan using “shekels of silver, according to the weights current among the merchants” in Genesis 23: 12-19 (see verse at top of article). Also in Genesis we can read of how Joseph was sold by his brothers for 20 shekels of silver to Midianite traders on their way to Egypt.
And they drew Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver. – Gen. 37:28
1 Kings describes the vast wealth of King Solomon and how he built his army with chariots and horses that he bought with silver weighed in shekels.
And the king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stone…. And Solomon’s import of horses was from Egypt and Kue, and the king’s traders received them from Kue at a price. A chariot could be imported from Egypt for 600 shekels of silver and a horse for 150, and so through the king’s traders they were exported to all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Syria. – 1 Kings 10:27-29
On the opposite end of the spectrum, an account in 2 Kings says that due to a siege and a great famine, Samaria’s prices skyrocketed so much that:
“A donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and the fourth part of a kab [about 1 liter] of dove’s dung for five shekels of silver.” – 2 Kings 6:25
Regional Trade Larger Than Previously Thought
The hordes of silver found throughout the Holy Land were unpolished and mainly discovered wrapped in fabric and kept in pottery, signifying they were used for currency, not as jewelry or ornamental objects.
“The use of silver [as currency] indicates a society that used scales and writing to record transactions,” explained Dr. Eshel. It also means there needed to be silver flowing into the area constantly, she said. Buying and selling using silver increased the volume of trade and brought with it many advantages and new possibilities that contributed to the urban and economic development of the entire area.
These crudely cut pieces of silver acted as a type of proto-coin. Minted coins weren’t used by people in the Levant until almost 1,000 years after these pieces of broken silver were used, said the researchers.
Where Did the Silver Come From?
There were no known silver mines in the Levant, so researchers set out to determine where the pieces originated by using isotope analysis. This amazing and powerful tool examines the chemical composition of lead in the silver.
By comparing the results of the silver’s unique make-up to ores of known origin, as well as to other silver objects, researchers found that the silver most likely originated in Anatolia, modern-day Turkey. Supporting evidence comes from other objects from Anatolia that were found with the excavated hordes of silver, such as an ax head and a pendant.
“This means that we are witnessing the first evidence that there was continuous and long-term trade of metals between the Levant and Anatolia, already 1,700 years before the common era,” said Eshel. “We know for sure that in the Iron Age this kind of trade existed, but our findings move the beginning of this type of trade in metals to 500 years earlier.”
The current study also examined previously discovered samples from the Israel Antiquities Authority, the Rockefeller Museum, and the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
“Before, archaeologists tracked trade routes using ceramics, but not every trade route has ceramic evidence,” Eshel said. “This is the first time we are doing it for silver in the Bronze Age.”
According to Eshel, silver first reached the Levant in the 4th millennium BC, used for figurines and jewelry. Only in the Bronze Age, in the 3rd millennium BC, were pieces of silver used as currency.
“We know that silver was the main means of value and exchange in Mesopotamia for a long time, even before the Levant,” explained Eshel. “Everything was valued by the silver shekel.”
A collection of hacksilber from Tel el-Ajjul in Gaza. (credit: IAA)
Earliest Jewish Minted Coins
The first silver coins to be minted by Jewish authorities are called “Yehud” and were stamped around 350 BC at a mint located in Jerusalem. The 350 BC date of Yehud coins puts them among the oldest coins in existence. Current evidence indicates that coins first began to be used in the ancient world around 600 BC by the kingdom of Lydia in present-day Turkey.
Yehud coins were discovered by the wet sifting of 9,000 tons of earth removed from the Temple Mount (in the area known as Solomon’s stables) as a prelude to the construction of an underground mosque. The dirt was unceremoniously dumped in the nearby Kidron Valley.
Researchers have recovered more than 6,000 ancient coins from the Temple Mount Sifting Project, 10 of them being Yehud coins. In all of Israel, there have been a total of 51 Yehud coins unearthed and recorded at archaeological digs.
Yehud coins were minted after the Jewish people were permitted by the Persian King Cyrus the Great to return to Judah in 538 BC following decades of exile in Babylon. During this period, and before the Persian Empire fell to the army of Alexander the Great, the Jews in the province surrounding Jerusalem were allowed to govern themselves with Persian supervision.
The silver Yehud coins discovered were quite small—less than 7 millimeters in diameter. Based on an Athenian coin, the Yehud coins pictured a barn owl. In place of the abbreviation for Athens, however, the Yehud coins were inscribed with the “YUD” for the Persian province of Yehud Medinata.
The Yehud coins were valued according to their silver content. While Jewish authorities in Jerusalem minted these Yehud coins of smaller value, coins of greater value continued to be minted by the Persian Empire outside the area, according to Yaakov Meshorer, a renowned numismatist.
“These smaller local [Yehud] coins varied from 1 drachma (4 grams of silver) to the hemiobol (1/3 gram of silver,)” The Times of Israel quotes Yaakov as saying.
A principal player during this period was the Jewish scribe Ezra, who traveled from Babylon to Jerusalem where he reintroduced the Torah to the Jewish remnant. His story is told in the biblical Book of Ezra.
The coins discovered by the Temple Mount Sifting Project were minted during this 200-year period of semi-autonomous rule. This confirms the accuracy of the Bible’s account of the political situation in Jerusalem in the era of Ezra and Nehemiah.
“These were the first coins ever minted by Jews,” said Zachi Dvira, co-director of the Temple Mount Sifting Project, in a story on YNET. “They express the people’s return to their land after the Babylonian Exile and their ability to hold and maintain diplomatic ties with the ruling empire.”
Conclusion
The proto-coin hacksilber is often overlooked by archaeologists during digs because it’s not very pretty and oftentimes is found with more beautiful and flashier objects that catch attention. But the ugly, irregular lumps of silver can reveal just as much, if not more, about daily life in the ancient Levant, noted Eshel. “This raw material doesn’t have a nice shape and doesn’t look so great in photos, but I think it’s beautiful,” she said.
“The significance [of this study] is that we discovered the first evidence that there was a continuous and long-term trade of metals from the Levant region to Anatolia already in the 17th century BCE,” researchers concluded.
These findings also help us better understand the world where the biblical accounts took place, and even the context and meaning of specific verses.
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