A shekel or sheqel (; , , plural , ) is an ancient Mesopotamian coin, usually of silver. A shekel was first a unit of weight—very roughly 11 grams (0.35 Troy weight)—and became currency in ancient Tyre, Carthage and Hasmonean Judea.
Name
The word shekel is based on the
triliteral Proto-Semitic root
ṯql, cognate to the Akkadian šiqlu or siqlu, a unit of weight equivalent to the Sumerian gin2.
Use of the word was first attested in under the reign of Naram-Sin of Akkad, and later in in the Code of Hammurabi. The Hebrew reflex of the root
šql is found in the Hebrew words for "to weigh" (shaqal), "weight" (mishqal) and "consideration" (shiqqul). It is cognate to the
Aramaic root
tql and the
Arabic root
ṯql (
ث ق ل, in words such as thiqāl "weight", thāqil "heavy" or
mithqal, a unit of weight). The famous writing on the wall in the Book of Daniel includes a cryptic use of the word in Aramaic: "Mene, mene, teqel, u-farsin".
Shekel came into the English language via the Hebrew Bible, where it is first used in Chayei Sarah.
The term "shekel" has been used for a unit of weight, around 9.6 or 9.8 grams (0.31 or 0.32 ozt), used in Bronze Age Europe for balance weights and fragments of bronze that may have served as money.
History
The earliest shekels were a unit of weight, used as other units such as grams and troy ounces for trading before the advent of coins. The shekel was common among western Semitic speakers.
,
, and
used the shekel, although proper coinage developed very late. Carthaginian coinage was based on the shekel and may have preceded its home town of Tyre in issuing proper coins.
Coins were used and may have been invented by the early Anatolian traders who stamped their marks to avoid weighing each time used. Herodotus states that the first coinage was issued by Croesus, King of Lydia, spreading to the golden Daric (worth 20 sigloi or shekel),[.] issued by the Achaemenid Empire and the silver Athenian obol and Ancient drachma. Early coins were money stamped with an official seal to certify their weight. Silver ingots, some of them with markings, were issued. Later authorities decided who designed coins.
As with many ancient units, the shekel had a variety of values depending on the era, government and region; weights between 7
Israelites
notes that the measures of the ingredients for the holy anointing oil were to be calculated using the ''Shekel of the Sanctuary'' (see also , and similarly at for payment for the redemption of 273 first-born males[See [[Bemidbar (Parsha)#Sixth reading — Numbers 3:40–51]]] and at for the offerings of the leaders of the tribes of Israel), suggesting that there were other common measures of a shekel in use, or at least that the Temple authorities defined a standard for the shekel to be used for Temple purposes.
According to Levitical law, whenever a census of the Israelites was to be conducted, every person that was counted was required to pay the half-shekel for his atonement ().[Compare Josephus, Antiquities (vii. 13, § 1) Antiquities of the Jews – Book VII]
The Aramaic tekel, similar to the Hebrew shekel, used during the feast of Belshazzar according to the Book of Daniel and defined as weighed, shares a common root with the word shekel and may even additionally attest to its original usage as a weight.
Second Temple period half-Shekel Temple tax
During the Second Temple period, it was customary among Jews to annually offer the
half-Shekel into the Temple treasury, for the upkeep and maintenance of the Temple precincts, as also used in purchasing public animal offerings. This practice not only applied to Jews living in the Land of Israel, but also to Jews living outside the Land of Israel.
[Josephus, Antiquities (xviii. 9, § 1)] Archaeological excavations conducted at Horvat 'Ethri in Israel from 1999 to 2001 by
Boaz Zissu and Amir Ganor of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) have yielded important finds, the most-prized of which being a
half-Shekel coin minted in the 2nd century CE, upon which are embossed the words "Half-Shekel" in paleo-Hebrew (). The same coin possesses a silver content of 6.87 grams.
[Boaz Zissu & Amir Ganor, Horvat Ethri — A Jewish Village from the Second Temple Period and the Bar Kokhba Revolt in the Judean Foothills, Journal of Jewish Studies 60 (1), Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, London 2009, pp. 96; 118.] According to the Jewish historian
Josephus, the annual monetary tribute of the half-Shekel to the Temple at
Jerusalem was equivalent to two
Ancient drachma, each Athenian or
Attica drachma weighing a little over 4.3 grams.
[Josephus, Wars of the Jews (vii. 6, § 6).]
Jewish–Roman wars
The First Jewish Revolt coinage was issued from AD 66 to 70 amid the First Jewish–Roman War as a means of emphasizing the independence of
Judea from Roman rule and replacing the
Tyrian shekel with its image of a foreign god which had previously been minted to pay the temple tax.
The Bar Kochba shekel was issued from AD 132 to 135 amid the Bar Kokhba revolt for similar reasons.
Carthage
The
Punic people or Carthaginian shekel was typically around 7.2 grams in silver and 7.5 grams in gold (suggesting an exchange rate of 12:1).
It was apparently first developed in
Sicily during the mid-4th century BC.
[.] It was associated with the payment of Carthage's mercenary armies and was repeatedly devalued over the course of each of the
Punic Wars. The amount and quality of this currency however increased as a result of the Carthaginian Empire's expansion into Spain under the
Barcids before the Second Punic War and recovery under
Hannibal before the Third Punic War. Throughout, it was more common for Carthage's holdings in
North Africa to employ
bronze or no coinage except when paying mercenary armies and for most of the coins to circulate in Iberia, Sardinia, and Sicily.
[
]
Tyre
The Tyrian shekel began to be issued .[ Owing to the relative purity of its silver, it became the preferred medium of payment for the Temple tax in Jerusalem. In the New Testament, the “30 pieces of silver” paid by the chief priests to Judas Iscariot in exchange for his betrayal of Jesus may be a reference to the Tyrian shekel.][.]
Present
Israel
The shekel ( sheqel in direct transcription) replaced the Israeli pound (, lira) in 1980. Its currency symbol was , although it was more commonly notated as ש or IS. It was subdivided into 100 new agorot (אגורות חדשות). It was replaced in 1985 by the new shekel, due to hyperinflation. Its currency symbol is although it is often notated as ש״ח or NIS. It is subdivided into 100 Israeli agora. Both Israeli shekels are solely units of Fiat money, and not related to the weight of any precious metal. With the 2014 series of notes, the Bank of Israel abandoned the transcriptions Sheqel and Sheqalim in favor of the standard English forms Shekel and Shekels.
See also
Citations
Bibliography
-
Girardin, Michaël (2024). "Le demi-sicle, de Moïse au fiscus Iudaicus. Histoire d’une téléologie." Journal of Ancient Civilizations 39,1, pp. 73–98.
External links
