Yehud (YHD) king’s head silver Half-Gerah (Half-Ma’ah)

This coin and other coins termed as “Yehud” types were produced and circulated primarily within what can be considered the heart of the Holy Land – an area nearly inclusive of Jerusalem and its relatively close environs which was an official province of the Persian Empire that consisted of a portion of pre-Exilic Judah. Persians called the province Yehud Medinata (or Medin’ta). ‘Yehud’ is the Aramaic transliteration of Judah. ‘Medinata’ is Aramaic for province. The province centered on Jerusalem and extended outward an approximate 15 miles or slightly further in every direction. This dimension coincides with a size of 50 by 50 kilometers as determined from find distributions of seal impressions which bore the impression of Yehud.¹ The implication from Yehud coinage discoveries is that these types were used as coins locally in that area exclusively.²

Yehud was one of multiple provinces within a large Persian Satrapy known as ‘Abar-Nahara.³ This Satrapy is specifically named 16 times in Nehemiah and Ezra.  Most English translations of Scripture use the literal phrase “beyond the river” to translate ‘Abar Nahara, although the NIV and a few other versions supplant the name of the Euphrates River and utilize “Trans-Euphrates” to translate ‘Abar-Nahara. This is accurate, as the Euphrates is held as the river which Yehud was described beyond.       

Beginning in early to mid-4^th century BCE Yehud initiated a variety of coin types. Thy are considered the earliest of what can be termed Jewish coins.⁴  During their issuance in the period of Persian control the coins most often bear an abbreviated Aramaic spelling of Yehud using Paleo-Hebrew lettering as ‘YHD’ or ‘YHWD’.

The reverse side of this example includes a three-letter version of the province name, which is readable, although not with great ease through an unfamiliar eye. This is due to a combination of two factors: (1) The ‘YHD’ was struck near the flan’s edge which caused a very small portion of the letters to be just off the flan. (2) The reverse die used to strike the coin included a retrograde (reverse-flipped) arrangement of the letters. Neither of these two factors is unusual. ‘YHD’ is certainly evident on this example; (actually even more so than on most examples). See below for an explanatory visual of the three Paleo-Hebrew letters that includes their normal-vs-retrograde forms. (For a distinct three-letter ‘YHD’ see this collection’s Yehud coin which feature’s a lily.)

The bird on the ‘YHD’ side of the coin is nicely preserved and clear. It is complete in form, well-centered, includes a distinct eye and beak, and shows feather detail over the entire body. Most likely the bird is a falcon, and is sometimes described specifically as an Egyptian falcon, which is plausible due to Egyptian cultural ties to both Persia and Babylon who for a time each held control of Egyptian land in addition to the Jerusalem area; and because the leadership of Yehud and its surrounding provinces had historic Egyptian connections.⁵ Also, it has been proposed that Yehud coinage was directly influenced by Egyptian revolts that effected the southern Levante.⁶ Regardless, Egyptian iconography would have been familiar in the area of Yehud; (although any resulting possible link to the important falcon-headed Egyptian deity Horus raises questions).

The royal head on the obverse is clearly of Persian style, and it can be assumed that “the intention was to depict the head of a Persian monarch”⁷. From dating held by current scholarship⁸ the candidates for this figure are either Artaxerxes III who reigned from 359-336 B.C., or Darius III who reigned from 336-333 BCE. Artaxerxes III persuaded the Athenians to leave Asia Minor, entered into Egypt inaugurating a successful re-conquest of that land, and revived much of the Persian Empire as it had been under Darius I. “The order of the state was restored, its apparatus reorganized, the central power strengthened.”⁸  Darius III was the Persian king whose soon-to-come severe defeat by Alexander the Great in the battles at Issus and (most notably) Gaugamel would end two centuries of Persian control over the Holy Land.

By comparison to the clarity of the falcon, the king’s head is somewhat faint on this example. Most likely this was the result of a worn die. Yehud obverse dies are known to have remained in service for lengthy durations – even until quite worn¹⁰. A weak strike may also have contributed to the visible faintness of the king’s head.

With technology available 2300 years ago the miniscule nature of these coins presented production challenges. One of the more extreme is evident on this example. It is the development of breaks and cracks in the dies that were used to strike the coins. These dies were prone to such damage due to their tiny size and resulting fragility. When a die suffered a crack, it caused the appearance of a line on the coin’s surface. This example clearly shows two such instances. The king’s headwear¹¹ seems to show its rear crown point extending much longer than the front two points – but this is the result of a die break. Similarly, the falcon on the reverse seems to have a long worm dangling from its beak and extending to its wing – this is also due to a die break.

Another difficulty in production of coins this size was ensuring accurate die alignment to the flan when striking. As a result many of these coins were struck off-center, and sometimes severely so. This example did not fall victim to that  impediment. Both sides of the coin are very well centered. The king’s head is situated just slightly below mid-point of the flan’s obverse, and considering the small flan size (as compared to the die size) the falcon is virtually bulls-eye on the reverse. Had the reverse die been placed even a half-millimeter differently the bird’s head would be missing, the legend would be reduced by 2/3rds, a wingtip would be lost, or the ends of the tail-feathers would be chopped.     

By current consensus this silver coin was produced in Yehud’s “functioning dominant city”¹² of Jerusalem¹³, and was issued as a one-half gerah weight unit. (The Aramaic term “ma’ah” can appropriately be used in place of the Hebrew term “gerah”.) In the pre-coinage First Temple era when hacksilver was in prevalent use, one gerah was equal to 1/20^th of a shekel. But in this early post-Exilic era when this coin was produced one gerah was calculated as 1/24^th shekel.

Being of high silver purity, coins of this type were not only used in local trade and commerce, but were also acceptable for payment of the annual Jerusalem Temple tax of one-half-shekel of silver during this late Persian period.¹⁴ Because a shekel was comprised of 24 gerah, and a half-shekel consisted of 24 half-gerahs, a full two dozen of these tiny half-gerah coins were required to fulfil the annual tax.

This particular example weighs .289 grams. In precision, based on 24 gerah per 11.4 gram shekel, a gerah weighs .475 grams and a half-gerah weighs .2375 grams. That means this example is roughly 20% over a precise weight but this is not concerning. From metrological studies of a large sampling of extant examples of this coin type the average weight proved to be .26 grams, and over 4 out of 5 coins ranged between .20 and .31 grams.¹⁵  With that in mind this example is just 11% above the average weight and within the majority weight range. Here again, one must consider the great  technological difficulty of producing such petite coin flans – in this regard the problem to overcome was producing these tiny silver slivers at an exactly consistent weight.¹⁶ 

An obvious connection between this coin and the Persian sigloi and darics is the royal figure of a crowned king. This is by no means surprising in view of the area having still been under Persia control. However, it is noteworthy that the Persians allowed a more kind and tolerant rulership than had either the Assyrians or Babylonians.¹⁷  This fact, from a numismatic perspective, can be perceived by noting that local Jewish officials in Yehud were allowed the freedom to express themes of their own culture and religion on coinage they produced¹⁸, a fact which is seen on other Yehud types in this collection.¹⁹

*Note: This coin was recently transferred from this collection to the collection of Dr. Charles Savelle.*

ENDNOTES

¹ “’Religious Revolution’ in Yehud?: The Material Culture of the Persian Period a Test Case”, by Christian Frevel & Hatharina Psychny, in Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis, edited by Christian Frevel, Katharina Psychny, and Izak Cornelius, Academic Press Fribourg, ISBN: 978-3-7278-1743-3., Page 4, and “Map 1: The province of Yehud”.

² “Fractional coins of Judea and Samaria in the Fourth Century BCE”, pages 106-121 of ‘Near Eastern Archaeology’, Vol. 64. No. 3 Sep. 2001, published by The American Schools of Oriental Research, author of article: Stephen N. Gerson, DOI: 10.2307/3210840, actual cite from page 116.

³ Other spellings for ‘Abar-Nahara include Eber-Nari, Aber-Nahra, and ‘Eber ha-Nahar. The province of Samaria was also in this same Satrapy.

⁴ Coins of the Holy Land: The Abraham and Marian Sofaer Collection at the American Numismatic Society and the Israel Museum, Volume 1, The American Numismatic Society, New York, 2013, Ya’Akov Meshorer with Gabriela Bijovsky and Wolfgang Fischer-Bossert, Edited by David Hendin and Andrew Meadows, Page 237.

⁵ “Religious and Cultural Boundaries from the Neo-Babylonian to the Early Greek Period: A Context for Iconographic Interpretation”, by Lester L. Grabbe, in Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis, edited by Christian Frevel, Katharina Psychny, and Izak Cornelius, Academic Press Fribourg, ISBN: 978-3-7278-1743-3., Pages 26, 30.

⁶ “Minting Coins in Jerusalem During the Persian and Hellenistic Periods”, by Yehoshua Zlotnik, Lecture given 5/13/2013 to the Israel Numismatic Society members Tel Aviv branch, copyright 2012, pages 1-2.

⁷ “A Treasury of Jewish Coins: From the Persian Period to Bar Kochba”, Ya’Akov Meshorer, Yad Ben-Zvi Press, Jerusalem (in Hebrew), Amphora Books, Nyack, NY (English), 2001, ISBN 0-9654029-1-6 (Amphora Books).  Pg.11

⁸ Yehud coinage chronology is debated, but fruit from much study shows a general consensus for this type to have been produced as early as 340 B.C. (Meshorer, Mildenberg, and Carter) and no later than 333 B.C. (Hendin, GBC V, pg. 126).

⁹ http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/artaxerxes-iii-throne-name-of-ochus-gk

¹⁰ J.P. Fontanille’s work with die studies has provided a significant resource in the field of Judean and biblical numismatics. His study of the specific dies used to create coin types has revealed valuable information, including the origin and spread of individual die cracks, and diagrams such as the one shown above which reveals what the original dies used to create the coin types looked like.

¹¹ This headwear is sometimes referred to as a kidaris (or cidaris), a term applied to royal headwear in later times. Definitions of kidaris include various descriptors including hat, tiara, stiff cloth, flaps that hang downward, Scythian usage, etc. But on this coin type, as on the many Persian/Achaemenid coin types issued prior, it is abundantly clear that the headwear is a crenellated crown. Persian cylinders and rock relief depictions affirm this.

¹² “The Triumph of Elohim”, Diane V. Edelman, page 223.

¹³ ISSN 1426-5435, Notae Numismaticae, Tom XI, published by: Muzeum Narodowe W Krakowie, Kraków, Poland,  2016. “The Circulation of Locally Minted Persian-Period Coins in the Southern Levant”, Donald T. Ariel, page 16.

¹⁴ Ronen Page 124 re: usage for temple tax

¹⁵ “The Weight Standards of the Judean Coinage in the Later Persian and Early Ptolemaic Period”, pages 122-126 of ‘Near Eastern Archaeology’, Vol. 61. No. 2 June 1998, published by The American Schools of Oriental Research, author of article: Yigal Ronen, DOI: 10.2307/3210642, actual cite from page 122.

¹⁶ The same metrological studies by Ronen cited above for half-gerah coinage showed that extant examples of Yehud coinage in the Persian era struck on what was obviously intended to be full, one-gerah coinage (which bear the likeness of an owl rather than a falcon), have an average weight of .48 grams which is virtually spot on the expected precise .475 gram weight for one gerah. This more accurate weight standard is presumably attributed to the larger, more workable size, increased by a factor of two over the half-gerah coins.

¹⁷ “Christianity: The Pursuit of Divine Truth”, 2008, by Donald W. Ekstrand; Xulon Press, a division of Salem Communications Corp., Longwood, FL, page 138.

¹⁸ Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coins, article by Michael Alram, page 71.

¹⁹ See in particular the YHD coin with a lily and the YHD coin with burning incense.