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Judaea under Persian Rule – Yehud Coinage
Silver Gerah 7mm (0.53 grams)
Reference: Hendin 1052
Crude head of Athena facing right.
YHD to right of owl, standing right, head facing.
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The Yehud coinage is a series of small silver coins bearing the Aramaic inscription Yehud. They derive their name from the inscription YHD, “Yehud”, the Aramaic name of the Achaemenid Persian province of Yehud; others are inscribed YHDH, the same name in Hebrew. The YHD coins are believed to date from the Persian period. On the other hand, it is possible that the YHDH coins are from the following Ptolemaic period.
Mildenburg dates Yehud coins from the early 4th century BCE to the reign of Ptolemy I (312–285 BCE), while Meshorer believes there was a gap during Ptolemy I’s time and that minting resumed during Ptolemy II and continued into Ptolemy III, although this has been questioned. The earlier coins were almost certainly produced in imitation of Athenian coins and were used locally as a small change to supplement the larger denominations from more centralized mints elsewhere in the region.
A lot of these coins were probably minted in Jerusalem.
Unlike later Jewish coinage, Yehud coins depict living creatures, flowers and even human beings. During the First Temple period, figural art was frequently used, centralized cherubim over the Ark of the Covenant, the twelve oxen that supported the giant laver in front of Solomon’s Temple, etc. Thus, it is likely that the Yehud coins are continuing the use of figural art from the previous period. The traditional religious prohibition against graven images was probably seen as relating only to idolatrous images rather than the purely decorative. Depictions on the coinage include imagery borrowed from other cultures, such as the Athenian Owl, and various mythological creatures. The lily flower was also commonly portrayed. Various human images are also portrayed. Some coins bear images of Persian rulers. The identity of other human images are not always clear; some of them may even be images of Jewish leaders, such as Temple priests.
One coin depicts an enthroned deity, claimed by some experts to be Yahweh, while this is disputed by others. It has been suggested recently that this coin was actually minted in Samaria and depicts Samarian Yahweh.
The coins from the Persian period tend to be inscribed in Aramaic “square script” or Paleo-Hebrew and use the Aramaic spelling of the province as ‘y-h-d’, while those coins from the Ptolemaic/Hellenistic period (or maybe earlier) are inscribed in the Paleo-Hebrew script and usually spell Judea as ‘y-h-d’, ‘y-h-d-h’ or ‘y-h-w-d-h’.
Recent study by Yehoshua Zlotnik attempts to relate different kinds of coins, and the specifics of their manufacture to the changing political situation in Judea in the 4th century BCE. He deals with different coin-types, and with such unusual phenomena as minting on only one side of the coin, and seemingly deliberate flaws on certain dies. According to Zlotnik, these and other features can clarify the political state of affairs in Judah, such as independence, autonomy, or transition period. Zlotnik also does a comparison of Yehud coins with contemporary coins from various neighbouring mints, such as Samaria, Edom and Sidon.
According to Zlotnik, the first minting of “Yehud” coins began around 400 BCE under the influence of the contemporary Egyptian revolts against Persia. These were small silver coins (obols) imitating the Athenian model — the coins that were also quite common in Egypt at that time. Such coins were also the most commonly used coins in circulation in Philistia, Judea and Edom at this time.
When the Persian reconquered the area after 360 BCE, they gave permission for further minting of similar silver coins under their own governors. This type of minting continued also under the Ptolemies.
Mildenberg divides most of the Persian period ‘Yehud’ coinage into three groups: an early group of poorly defined coins with the head of Athena on the obverse with her owl on the reverse with the inscription ‘y-h-d’ in Paleo-Hebrew; the second group are more clearly defined and depict a lily, and an Egyptian falcon (see pictures), and the head of the Persian king, with the inscription ‘y-h-d’; the third group has the Hebrew inscription ‘Hezekiah the governor’ (yhzqyh hphh). All these coins have been found in the area of Judea.
The Yehud coins come in two denominations, approximately .58 gram as a ma’ah and approximately .29 gram as a half ma’ah (chatzi ma’ah). These coins might have been minted in the first 40 years of the Second Temple era. For larger coinage, they first used Persian coinage, the Persian daric and the Sigloi; then Greek (Alexandrian Empire) coins like the drachma and the tetradrachm.
Starting with the Jewish Kings, most coins were minted at the Jerusalem mint. The Hosmoneon Dynasty coinage begins with John Hyrcanus I (135-104 B.C.) followed by Judah Aristobulus (104 B.C.), then Alexander Jannaeus (104-76 B.C.). The Herodian Dynasty came next with Herod I (the Great) (40-4 B.C.), followed by Herod Archelaus (4 B.C. – 6 A.D.), Herod Antipas (4 B.C. – 39 A.D.), Herod Philip and Herod Agrippa I (41-44 A.D.).
Roman Procurator coinage was issued under procurators and prefects of the province of Judaea which minted coins with names of contemporary emperors between circa 6 – 66 A.D. They minted only one denomination and size, the bronze Prutah. Not all of the procurators and prefects issued coinage in the province of Judaea under the Romans. Those that did issue coins were Coponius (6-9 A.D.) (under the Roman emperor Augustus, 27 B.C.-14A.D.), Marcus Ambibulus (9-12 A.D.), Valerius Gratus (15-18/26 A.D.) (time of Roman emperor Tiberius 14-37 A.D.), Pontius Pilate (26-36 A.D.), Antonius Felix (52-60 A.D.) (under Roman emperor Claudius 41-54 A.D.), and Porcius Festus (59-62 A.D.) (under emperor Nero 54-68 A.D.). The last three procurators were Lucceius Albinus, Gessius Florus and Marcus Antonius Julianus. They did not issue any coins since the First Jewish-Roman War was brewing during emperor Nero’s reign and the leaders of the revolt started issuing their own coins for the period known as the Jewish War (67-70 A.D.).
After the conquest of Jerusalem under Vespasian and Titus, this period of coinage ended and Romans commemorated the victories over Jerusalem and the surrounding area with Judaea Capta coinage.
Judea ( Latin: IVDAEA), sometimes spelled in its original Latin forms of Judæa, Judaea or Iudaea to distinguish it from Judea proper, is a term used by historians to refer to the Roman province that incorporated the geographical regions of Judea, Samaria, and Idumea, and which extended over parts of the former regions of the Hasmonean and Herodian kingdoms of Israel. It was named after Herod Archelaus’s Tetrarchy of Judea, of which it was an expansion, the latter name deriving from the Kingdom of Judah of the 6th century BCE.
Rome’s involvement in the area dated from 63 BCE, following the end of the Third Mithridatic War, when Rome made Syria a province. In that year, after the defeat of Mithridates VI of Pontus, the proconsul Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great) sacked Jerusalem and entered the Jerusalem Temple. Subsequently, during the 1st century BCE, the Herodian Kingdom was established as a Roman client kingdom and then in 6 CE parts became a province of the Roman Empire.
Judea province was the scene of unrest at its founding during the Census of Quirinius and several wars were fought in its history, known as the Jewish-Roman wars. The Temple was destroyed in 70 as part of the Great Jewish Revolt resulting in the institution of the Fiscus Judaicus, and after Bar Kokhba’s revolt (132-135 CE), the Roman Emperor Hadrian changed the name of the province to Syria Palaestina and Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina, which certain scholars conclude was done in an attempt to remove the relationship of the Jewish people to the region.
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