It’s a
very good question which I’ve been asking myself for many years now, also asking it occasionally when talking to experts. I think there are several facts and well based assumptions we may relay on:
NO Silver coins were issued by a “
Jewish” political authority in
antiquity with two exceptions:
• At the Great revolt the various political authorities (that as
history tells us – changed during the various stages of the revolt, while the pattern of their coins remained the same) minted the “Tample Tax Shekels / half Shekels”. These coins are strongly related to the Jerusalem temple and were NOT in wide circulation as means of payment. They were NOT found outside Judea (with the exception of occasional items that found their way to faraway places not as being legal
money but as war booty / relic) – not even in the Galilee! Obviously these coins were illegal to obtain, thus people would not have risked trading with them in the besieged and later conquered Galilee, but
still - not even a single item… Almost all Silver Shekels were found in
hoards located in sites that were directly related to the war in Jerusalem (we know that also from the information regarding
hoards that were not found by archaeologists). In some cases single coins were kept as sort of relics by future generations – some found mixed with 2nd revolt
hoards (65-70 years later) – also pointing on the fact they value was symbolic and related to the Temple system.
• The silver coins of the 2nd revolt are not really a
denomination minted by the
Jewish authority – all were valid
Denarius /Drachma / Tetradrachma coins in circulation that were
overstruck by the rebellion’s authorities. This is more of a mean of propaganda rather then a revolution in
Judean commerce. Its like when during the 1989 Romanian revolution people cut the Communist symbol outside the Romanian flag – they did not create a new flag: just removed a symbol they regarded as alien.
• The huge inflation in very small bronze
denominations in
Judean is an issue for itself – I do not think it is related to the absence of Silver
denominations. Whether it’s the Hashmonaim,
Herodian dynasty (till Aprippa the 1st),
Roman administration (till the revolt) and the 1st revolt – the phenomenon is clear and repeating itself MOSTLY in Judea and with coins minted for the Jews (Herodians that ruled territories that were predominantly NON
Jewish tended to mind larges
denominations and in much smaller numbers).
• It has been recently suggested, and based on some
very good bases of archaeological finds, that not all
Judean coins were refer for a certain authority were actually minted by one authority. The outstanding number of “Barbarian” coin
types AND the large number of
flan casting
stone molds led researchers to bring the assumption that it may have been that there were many minting sources for coins that were on the same
type – as opposed to one central
mint. Archaeologists excavating a cluster of industrial 1st century AD facilities south of that time Jerusalem located what is probably a small
mint where dozens of “
Barbaric”
Roman Administration coins from the same dies were found – while such coins with die matches found elsewhere are very
rare. Other industrial remains related to minting coins was found there too. This means we might be quite far from understanding the
Judean monetary system in the 1st centuries BCE and AD. It might well have been quite different compared to the centralized systems we know from other entities.
• Obviously as silver coins are supposed to reach much better standards of fitness and reliability – such products were out of the question in that economic atmosphere. Coins, after all, were a semi “product” and one that could not have compete in the markets due to being unreliable in fitness, representing an unstable entity and one unable for force its taxpayers to use its silver
money – they would just not do it. Preparing even a small amount of silver
money “just for the principle” doesn’t seem to have existed as an idea. The Silver Shekels of the 1st rebellion
had, as mentioned, a specific purpose – and
still may have well minted also as a symbol: which makes sense as the rebellion is often regarded as a case of “Theological madness”.