Credit: Zunkir
License: CC BY-SA 4.0
Credit URL: https://commons.wikimedia.org...
Comments: Part of a silver hoard from Tell Taya, Iraq, Akkadian Empire period, ca 2200 BC. Weighed pieces of metal were used as currency, could be snipped off to use as payments. Ashmolean Museum.
Credit: Arkaio Nomisma
License: CC BY-SA 4.0
Credit URL: https://commons.wikimedia.org...
Comments: Ancient silver Greek coins spanning from 5th century BCE to 1st century BCE.
From Easton: Of uncoined money the first notice we have is in the history of Abraham (Genesis 13:2; Genesis 20:16; Genesis 24:35). Next, this word is used in connection with the purchase of the cave of Machpelah (Genesis 23:16), and again in connection with Jacob's purchase of a field at Shalem (Genesis 33:18, Genesis 33:19) for "an hundred pieces of money" = an hundred Hebrew kesitahs (q.v.), i.e., probably pieces of money, as is supposed, bearing the figure of a lamb.
The history of Joseph affords evidence of the constant use of money, silver of a fixed weight. This appears also in all the subsequent history of the Jewish people, in all their internal as well as foreign transactions. There were in common use in trade silver pieces of a definite weight, shekels, half-shekels, and quarter-shekels. But these were not properly coins, which are pieces of metal authoritatively issued, and bearing a stamp.
Of the use of coined money we have no early notice among the Hebrews. The first mentioned is of Persian coinage, the daric (Ezra 2:69; Nehemiah 7:70) and the 'adarkon (Ezra 8:27). The daric (q.v.) was a gold piece current in Palestine in the time of Cyrus. As long as the Jews, after the Exile, lived under Persian rule, they used Persian coins. These gave place to Greek coins when Palestine came under the dominion of the Greeks (B.C. 331), the coins consisting of gold, silver, and copper pieces. The usual gold pieces were staters (q.v.), and the silver coins tetradrachms and drachms.
In the year B.C. 140, Antiochus VII. gave permission to Simon the Maccabee to coin Jewish money. Shekels (q.v.) were then coined bearing the figure of the almond rod and the pot of manna.
