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Yehud coins rarity

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Joel W2:
I recently took an interest in the series of coins from the Yehud period of time. However, in researching the coins, there are articles (“The Times of Israel” article, specifically) that doesn’t make sense to me. A couple of quotes:

“ Three extremely rare Jewish-minted coins dating from the 4th century BCE were recently discovered by the Temple Mount Sifting Project, doubling the number unearthed in ancient Jerusalem to date. These coins are among the earliest testaments to Jewish minting in the Land of Israel.

Only three were clearly identified as these silver Yehud coins minted in Jerusalem by Jews during the Persian era, as well as two others which are suspected to be of the same class.

All told, in Israel to date there are 193 archaeologically provenanced coins which were minted locally throughout the Holy Land during the Persian era. Among them are only 51 Yehud coins.”

Is the article wrong about the rarity of these coins?  They seem to state that only dozens have been found.

Thanks for your thoughts!

Jay GT4:
Welcome to Forum.

Reporters always have a way of making things seem more spectacular than they are ;)

The Yehud coins were minted by the Persians for use in Judeae, hence the owl and Athena.   Maybe mine is one of the 51!

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=173431

Joel W2:
Thank you for the welcome! Long time lurker! Yeah, I read that article and started to question my sanity…

Beautiful coin.

Mine’s attached:

Jay GT4:
Nice!

Curtis JJ:
As Jay GT4 says, the news reports usually give exciting information that lacks full numismatic context. But the following is an interesting statement well worth trying to understand:


--- Quote ---All told, in Israel to date there are 193 archaeologically provenanced coins which were minted locally throughout the Holy Land during the Persian era.
--- End quote ---

The key phrase is "archaeologically provenanced" coins. Judaean/Samarian coins aren't my specialty, but I've read many of the recent references trying to understand the scholarship surrounding one of my own coins (gallery [LINK]), a mid-4th cent. BCE Samarian Obol (which I believe counts as "Persian era" in Judaea [?], or at least a close neighbor):



That coin would NOT count coin among the 193 archaeologically provenanced coins -- even though it was part of an important hoard (Samaria Hoard, before 1990) published by a Director and Chief Curator at Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and member of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), Ya'akhov Meshorer (1935-2004), along with Shraga Qedar (1933-2015), who worked more as a commercial numismatist.

Just like anywhere, coins from secured academic archaeological excavations are much rarer than coins of uncertain origin, unprovenanced finds, and/or hoards with only approximate find data. This one was not excavated by archaeologists, so we don't know exactly when or where it was found, and can't be 100% certain of the hoard's contents or context.

The number of coins discovered from this era and region have really exploded since the 1990s, but still only a few excavation finds are documented. There are a few "corpuses" of known specimens, which surely count many hundreds or more. Wyssman (2019) is the most comprehensive I know (Vielfältig Geprägt: Das Spätperserzeitliche Samaria und Seine Münzbilder). (My coin above is cited on p. 296 as MQ187.i -- in 1991 it was the only known specimen, by 2019 there were at least 11!) It was open source from ZORA (Zurich Open Repository and Archive), but the site doesn't seem to be loading: https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/181879 (I have Wyssman 2019 as PDF, downloaded legally [so it appeared, but if ZORA remains down it'll be hard to double-check], for anyone who wants it.)

I felt comfortable buying that coin, given that it was published by Meshorer, but I've also got another early coin from the region (Philistia/Palestine/Gaza?) -- an Athens type Hemiobol -- for which I sadly have no collection / find history beyond Agora Auctions 18 in 2014 [LINK] (but still searching!):

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