Numismatic and History Discussion Forums > Biblical & Judean Coins Discussion Forum

jewish war shekels in near perfect condition

<< < (4/6) > >>

Howard Cole:
Robert, I wish you much luck in your search.  As I said, I feel that the purity of the war shekels is the key to this issue.  I wish I had the time and resources to look.  It is near finals and I have a ton of papers to grade.  In addition, there are no libraries with the necessary resouces where I live.  The closest would be over 700 miles away, and then I would have to read Japanese or Chinese.

Ibex-coins:
If you are interested in what Meshorer says concerning shekels of the first revolt, he says that,"The fineness of the silver is high:98% Ag or more.  In terms of weight and silver content, these shekels were in effect a continuation of the Tyrian shekels.", pg 119, A Treasurey of Jewish Coins.  On page 116 of the same chapter he indicates that the statement the Jews were making with these shekels was that for the first time there were Jewish shekels for "...for all matters pertaining to the half-shekel tribute and other payments to the temple during the Second Temple period"
Although it was not easy to detect subtley debased silver in antiquity, there were ways.  Firstly we know that in Athens there were slaves whose job it was to detect good silver coins, from poor silver coins.  I refer you to Thomas Martin's article, "Coins and Slaves in Athens",Mnemata:Papers in Memory of Nancy M. Waggoner, pgs 21-48.
Livy 32.2 also records that quasetors had ways of detecting debased silver that Rome suspected the Carthaginians were using to pay their war indemity.
Pliny the Elder in his,"Natural History",book XXXIII, chapter 132, talks about a technique popularized by Marius Gratidianus for detecting debased silver denari minted during Anthony's war with Rome.

I almost must debate the statement that the Priest were supporters of Rome, although they had been to a point, they clearly joined the Revolt.  I suggest a carefully reading of Martin Goodman's book, "The Ruling Class of Judaea".

It is true that we probably never will know who minted these coins, but in Antiquity it was common to have the mint located in or about Temples in Greece.  It is not a far stretch to hypothosis a similar senario in Judaea.

I have enjoyed this discussion very much and would love to hear other peoples views as well

Howard Cole:
I will not argue with Meshorer, even if some of his points are debated by others, especially the movement of the minting of Tyrian shekels to Jerusalem during the last 50 to 80 years of their production.

So there may have been two reason for issuing these shekels, for the temple tax and as an expression of independence.

As for the slaves in Athens that detected false coins.  They were not testing the silver except for fourees with a test punch.  I have read the article and remember it well.  The main tool for their detection of counterfeits was by the appearance of the coin.

I don't have information on how silver was assayed in ancient times, but I do know about medieval times.  To test for the fineness of silver you had to do this by cuperation.  You melted the silver alloy and added flux that combined with the impurities in the silver.  The silver was left in the bottom of the ceramic container.  You compared the weight of the original silver alloy with the pure silver to get a percentage of pure silver in the alloy.  This was called testing the silver by fire. 

What is the technique that Pliny the Elder and Livy writes about.  I would really like to know about it.  I don't have access to these sources.

Ibex-coins:
It has become quite vogue when someone wants to despute Meshorer's theories to refer to his theory about the movement of the minting of shekels of Tyre to Jerusalem.  It is true the perhaps a majority of numismatist, especially those working in Israel disagree with this theory.  However, that should not distract one from the major contributions that Meshorer made to the advancement of Judaean Numismatics.  Some of his theories were radical and many were provocative.  But these theories sparked more modern thinking and debate about Judaean coins than had previously occurred.  It is amazing to think about someone who wrote major numismatic references in 3 fields of numismatics, ancient jewish coins, Nabatean coins and Samarian coins.  His forth coming book will be about City coins.  It is incredible that his thoughts were usually right on in so many areas of numismatics.
As for the purity of Jewish coins which you attempt to debunk Meshorer by referring to another theory of his which is debated, perhaps I can convince you with two other references.
1) The application of SEM for Authentication of an Improtant Find of Year Five Shekels of the Jewish War, Herbert Kreindler, INJ Vol 9.
2) A Preliminary Study of the Application of SEM to the Study of Coins,  A.D. Kushlevsky and Meshorer, Scanning 2 (1979)

In Athens the aritcle I cited mentions that the slaves were not just looking for Fourees, the slaves for certifying coins in Athens were responsible for determining not just which coins were fakes, but also which coins could circulate at full value and which that could not.  But you are correct, we do not know what methods and tools were at their disposal to do so.

The Mishnah indicates that a similar control system was in place at the temple, as their are specific ways listed to invalidate a coin that was found to not be sanctioned for use for religious purposes.

Robert_Brenchley:
Meshorer surely deserves to be gegarded as one of the numismatic 'greats' of the 20th Century. I thought he might have something to say on the subject, but I don't have his book yet.

Does he say which priests supported the Romans? The Temple elite (the Sadducees, and a similar group, the Boethusians) surely did; they were aristocrats and their position depended heavily on Roman patronage. But their position wasn't secure; Josephus says that the Pharisees had the support of the people against them. During the years before the First Revolt, it seems that many of the Temple priests were probably increasingly radical, and that would probably imply that they were to a degree anti-Sadducee, and possibly pro-Pharisee. The Pharisees are traditionally regarded as pro-Roman, or at least neutral, and many of them doubtless were. But Josephus maintains that the 'fourth philosophy' which seems to have provided the ideological underpinning of the revolt agreed with the Pharisees in everything except an unconquerable desire for liberty (presumably from the Romans) and a refusal to accept any king but God. That surely immplies they they were radical Pharisees! When the decision was eventually taken to cease the sacrifice on behalf of Caesar, this surely wasn't the work of the Sadducees, and my guess would be that by that point they had probably lost control, and that the majority of the 'ordinary' priests were probably taking an anti-Roman stance.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page