CHRISTINE M. THOMPSON
SEALED SILVER IN IRON AGE CISJORDAN AND THE
‘INVENTION’ OF COINAGE
Summary. Recent finds of hoarded silver in Cisjordan present new material
for the consideration of the conceptual history of coined metals. When the
fundamental concepts associated with coinage are abstracted from the various
objects that express them, it is possible to see that a kind of coined metal existed
in Cisjordan and other parts of the Near East prior to the traditional
‘invention’ of coinage by the Lydians and Greeks c.600 BC.1 Both hoards and
written sources indicate that seals affixed to precious metals at times qualified
them in a numismatic sense by guaranteeing weights set to standards as well
as controlled composition. What has been characterized as the ‘invention’ of
coinage was rather an adaptation of these same principal concepts. The
frequency and size of silver hoards from Cisjordan point to a proliferation in
the ‘monetary’ use of silver in that region during the Iron Age and suggest a
relationship to the overwhelming preference for silver coinages among the
Greeks.
introduction
Definitions of ‘money’ and ‘coinage’ vary, each scholar tending to choose a set of
criteria that suits a favoured argument or particular context, and this paper can pretend to nothing
different in the absence of a consensus. For instance, Seltman’s definition of money as metallic
currency used according to specific weight standards (1955, 1) betrays a specifically numismatic
focus when compared to Polanyi’s more widely-consulted anthropological definition of money
as a store of wealth, measure of value and a means of payment and exchange (1968). Howgego’s
definition of a coin as ‘a piece of money made of metal which conforms to a standard and bears
a design’ (1995, 1) and Kurke’s deliberately interchangeable use of the terms ‘money’ and
‘coinage’ (1999, 13, n. 30) further exemplify semantic inconsistencies in scholarly literature. One
small part of the problem is that no convenient adjectives for ‘coin’ or ‘currency’ exist in English
so that ‘monetary’ is often an inadequate substitute by default. More importantly, we have not yet
identified sufficient resources to trace clearly the emergence of money (Howgego 1995, 14) or
coinage precisely where the latter is supposed to have been invented – Greco-Lydia.2
1
2
All dates are BC unless otherwise indicated.
The enormous bibliography on the origins of coinage partly serves to highlight the continued absence of definitive
answers to the fundamental questions of ‘who, what, when, why, where?’ A complete summary of scholarship is
impossible here, but Howgego’s Ancient History from Coins (1995) provides an excellent staging point with its
clear discussion of key issues and fairly recent bibliography.
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Inconclusive textual and material evidence have convinced most scholars that the
Lydians in western Anatolia were the first to use metals exhibiting what are usually accepted
as the fundamental qualities of coinage: metal of standard weight marked with a design.
The electrum specimens discovered at Ephesus in the structure known as the Central Basis
of the temple of Artemis are generally accepted as the earliest coins (Hogarth 1908, ch. 5;
Robinson 1951). At this point it is only possible to assign a terminus ante quem of c.560 to
the deposit (Bammer 1990, 1991).3 Many examples of what are thought to be the earliest
silver coinages of mainland Greece lack adequate contexts and permit only approximate
dates that necessarily rely on supposition. Some current estimates are at c.550 (Carradice and
Price 1988, 29) or c.575 (Kroll and Waggoner 1988, 325–40). Such indeterminacy allows the
unpopular possibility that mainland Greek coinages were developed first. Variant readings
of Herodotus and uncertainties in Pollux’s late second century AD Onom. (9.83)4 leave the
issue unsettled as well. Herodotus 1.94 tells us that the Lydians were the first to use minted
coins of gold and silver chrūsou kai argurou; many have taken this to indicate electrum coinage
of the sort known from the Artemision (Carradice and Price, 1988, 23–4; Howgego 1995, 1),
while others have understood it as a reference to the first bimetallic coinage (Ramage
and Craddock 2000, 18; Kraay 1976, 313). The point here is not to rework clearly inconclusive
evidence in order to create a new chronology or support an existing one, but to highlight
some of the lingering uncertainties surrounding the ‘invention’ of Greco-Lydian coinages and
to counter some misapprehensions about the character of Near Eastern monetary practices prior
to c.600.
If the majority of numismatists are correct in believing that the Lydians were the first
to mark metal of standard weight with a design, then coinage is a geographically Near Eastern
invention (Snell 1995, 1494). Nevertheless, early coinage often appears in scholarly literature
as a Greek phenomenon (Kraay 1964, 1976, 317–28; Howgego 1995, 1–2). This is partly
because (1) the Greeks and Lydians belonged to a complex cultural matrix around the time when
and place where coinage is first recognized (Hanfmann 1975, 11–13; Boardman 1980, 97–8),
(2) at least two of the coins in the Artemision deposit from Ephesus may be linked to one Greek
city by type,5 and (3) the practice of stamping or sealing precious metal spread so rapidly
throughout the Greek world that more than 100 Greek cities in mainland Greece, Italy, Sicily
and western Anatolia were minting their own silver coinages by about 480 (Osborne 1996,
253–5). Current research casts doubt on the notion that long-distance trade provided a stimulus
to coinage because it is generally accepted that the practice of marking metal with a seal of
guarantee separates Greco-Lydian coinages from the pre-weighed, unmarked ingots known from
a couple of Eastern contexts, such as Nush-i Jan in Iran (Bivar 1971).6 It has been difficult to
conceive that Easterners, including the great trading peoples like the ‘Phoenicians’,7 contributed
3
4
5
6
7
For another early coin hoard from Klazomenai see Erdogan (1992).
See Gardner (1881, 282) and Brown (1950, 177–204) on Pollux.
These bear the image or type of a seal’s head phōkē, the usual emblem of Phocaea.
The inscribed ingots of Barrekub from eighth century Zincirli present a unique exception to other Near Eastern
patterns (Balmuth 1967, 28–9, pl. 4, 1971, 1975).
A lack of clarity in material and publication records necessitates the use of the term ‘Phoenician’ here in almost
as generalized a sense as it was by the Greeks who invented it to describe peoples from a land without precise
boundaries but especially associated with the coastal Levantine cities of Tyre, Sidon and Byblos. Further, the
difference between Canaanite and Phoenician (or ‘Sidonian’) in the eleventh century Levant is semantic since
the latter culture slowly developed out of the former at this time (Mazar 1994, 41).
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anything to the development of coinage since the presentation of available evidence
characterizes them as initially ignorant of and subsequently ‘slow to adopt’ coined metal (Kraay
1964, 88; Snell 1995, 1496; Kurke 1999, 8–9). Further, there are clear indications that the ageold practice of weighing out bullion on balances continued in the Near East long after the
introduction of Greek silver coinages to the region in the sixth century;8 imported Greek coins
were chiselled not only for purity verification but also in order that the fragments might be used
as bullion or fractions of units (Reade 1986; Robinson 1950). A good example comes from
Sardis where excavators identified a chisel-cut fragment of a coin weighing precisely one-tenth
of a Lydian hecte or one-sixtieth of a stater (Greenewalt 1977, 54, fig. 8).
This paper focuses on a critical stage of numismatic activities anterior to sealed
Greco-Lydian coinages by presenting data from 35 Iron Age (c.1200–600) silver hoards
excavated from 13 sites in Israel and under the Palestinian Authority, henceforth Cisjordan
(Fig. 1).9 These hoards, in conjunction with written sources and material evidence from
other regions and periods, demonstrate that the fundamental concepts of coinage were
established in the Near East long before the Greeks and Lydians adapted them in the sixth
century. The Iron Age hoards from Cisjordan also suggest that the overwhelming preference
among Greek cities for silver coinages (as opposed to another metal) is partly linked to
Mediterranean trade.
The hoards from Cisjordan are remarkable for several reasons. First, they present
the largest identified concentration of silver hoards in the ancient Near East in terms of their
geographical and chronological distributions. They appear throughout the Iron Age and exhibit
an almost exclusive preference for silver over other metals. Silver hoards are well known from
other regions in earlier periods, but Bronze Age strata in Cisjordan have yielded only two
comparable finds known to the author.10 Not only does the frequency of hoards containing silver
significantly increase in Iron Age contexts, but two of the largest Hacksilber hoards ever
recovered from the ancient Near East were deposited in Cisjordan during the same period. The
Eshtemoa and Dor hoards contained nothing but silver fragments and ingots weighing 26 kg and
8.5 kg respectively. It is more remarkable still that these 34 hoards occur in a region that has no
native source of silver.
hoard contents
The hoards primarily contained fragmented bits of silver or Hacksilber, a German noun
in some ways analogous to the Akkadian šibirtu and the Hebrew kesep̄ (Powell 1978, 222; Mayer
1995, 270); all have been related to verbs meaning ‘to break’ or ‘shatter’ and refer to pieces of
silver used as currency or money. Pieces of Hacksilber were broken off all sorts of ingots and
worked objects including jewellery, amulets, cups, and so on. We have known for some time
that metal in this form was balanced on scales against standardized weights for the purposes of
8
9
10
The foundation deposits under the Apadana at Persepolis provide the only secure sixth century context. On their
dating see Briant (1989, 324–5), Kagan (1994) and Stronach (1985). The Phoenician city-states began minting
c.450; the first coins minted in Cisjordan are from Gaza c.400.
Not all hoards are securely dated, particularly the Shechem Hoard and those from Gezer. See Table 2 for an
overview and the Appendix for a fuller presentation of data including bibliography.
Megiddo Stratum XIIIA, 135 g of silver in a ‘lump’ (Loud 1948, pl. 228) and MB Shiloh (Brandl 1993, 238, fig.
9:12). The Ajjul bundler may have been comprised of mixed metals.
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Figure 1
Silver-hoard find-spots in Cisjordan.
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payment before and after the development of coinages, but the presence of damaged jewellery
in the hoards continues to lead to their erroneous attribution to smiths or jewellers. In his
discussion of the Achaemenid Hoard from Babylon, Reade makes the point most succinctly, ‘As
usual with “silversmith’s hoards” from the ancient world, there is no evidence for a silversmith’
(1986, 83). Overly taxonomical attributions would completely dissociate the plurality of possible
functions that the hoards served. For example, a hoard found in a jeweller’s workshop on temple
grounds could have been at the same time stored metallic wealth of standard weight (money)
and raw material; a foundation-deposit of silver might reflect circulating forms of currency or
money,11 and so on. However, one cannot state too emphatically that attributions to smiths or
jewellers should be established on the sort of criteria discussed by Bjorkman (1993) and that
analysis of content, context and associated materials make the best foundation for any discussion
of functions.12 That said, precious metal of any shape had a value that was fundamentally
‘monetary’ in Cisjordan during the Iron Age – it was at the very least a store of wealth. On this
basis the present study will limit itself to the possible numismatic significance of the silver
hoards from Cisjordan.
Shapes: Hacksilber, ingots, jewellery
A few distinctive forms frequently recur among the thousands of pieces of Hacksilber
and ingots often described as ‘scrap’ in the Cisjordan hoards. The following is a presentation of
these principal forms abstracted from an abundance of varieties.13 The shapes of the individual
pieces, like the hoards, often suggest a plurality of possible functions so that some may have
been both currency and raw material for the fabrication of various objects while others could
have been both ingot and ornament.
By far the most common kind of Hacksilber among the Iron Age hoards from Cisjordan
is the so-called ‘chocolate bar’ or ‘pre-portioned’ ingot – thousands of individual portions have
survived (Figs. 2–3). These are not simply pieces carelessly hacked off any sort of silver object.
They were snapped or broken off larger ingots that had been deliberately portioned in much
the same way that chocolate bars are today. Pre-portioned does not imply pre-weighed. No
exhaustive study has been made of their metrology so that at this point we have evidence for
what appears to be the deliberate mensuration by weight of individual portions only at Amathus
(below) and Nush-i Jan (Bivar 1971). No long portioned bars remain in the Cisjordan hoards,
but the treasures from ‘Troy’ provide 16 examples of this type in electrum (Fig. 4). Each was
4.33 inches long and divided into 52–60 portions (Schliemann 1880, 496, nos. 875–7; Tolstikov
and Treister 1996, 118–19, nos. 128–32). Other individual pieces of chocolate bar ingots
from roughly the same period are attested in silver and gold at Iron Age Amathus on
Cyprus (Fig. 5; Smith et al. 1900, 102, 123; Evans 1906, 355),14 Eretria in Greece (Themelis
1983), Nush-i Jan in Iran (Bivar 1971), and Zincirli in south-western Anatolia (von Luschan
11
12
13
14
As at Tel Miqne-Ekron (see Miqne Hoard E, Appendix), but cf. Weinstein (1973, lxxi, n. 2).
The contexts of many of these hoards were disturbed or at times poorly or never recorded in publication, but it
is an important subject to which I would like to return at a later date.
Some of the well-known ‘cake-ingots’ occur in these hoards, most notably at Ein Gedi. These demand a full
discussion elsewhere.
London, British Museum GR 1894.11-1.464 and 465, excavated from ‘sub-Mycenaean’ tomb no. 198; currently
dated 900–700.
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Figure 2
Chocolate bar ingots from Akko (author).
Figure 3
Chocolate bar ingots from Tel Miqne-Ekron (author).
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Figure 4
‘Pre-portioned’ ingots from ‘Troy’ (P. Finnerty).
Figure 5
Chocolate bar ingots of silver and gold from Amathus (British Museum photograph).
1943, 119–21). The examples from Amathus are particularly noteworthy because they appear
to have been portioned into pre-weighed pairs. Weights taken by the author are presented in
Table 3. Where differences are only ±0.1 g we could easily accept a pairing. Marshall (1911,
63–4) observed the pairs of ingots weighing the same amount and suggested they were for the
manufacture of earrings.
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SEALED SILVER IN IRON AGE CISJORDAN AND THE ‘INVENTION’ OF COINAGE
Figure 6
Chocolate bar ingot from Beth Shean with circled copper core (author).
The chocolate bar portions present a possible match, for the Hebrew noun kešitah. This
word appears three times in the Hebrew Bible,15 and its meaning has been disputed for hundreds
of years without resolution.16 Williamson, without the benefit of material evidence, proposed
the literal meaning of ‘a portion’ that refers ‘in all probability to a piece of rough metal, broken
off . . .’ (1894, 14; see also Koehler et al. 2000). If the identification of ‘portion’ is correct,
the literature reports that these chocolate bar or pre-portioned ingots were used to make
purchases.
The ubiquity of chocolate bar ingots might render them banal were it not for one
outstanding specimen from a twelfth century hoard uncovered at Beth Shean (Mazar 1997, 71).
It is a single chocolate bar portion. The surface of the ingot is completely silver in appearance,
but the cross sectioning of the object for laboratory analyses revealed a hidden copper core
(Fig. 6).
The presence of the core supports the idea that the object was not simply a piece of
scrap destined for the melting pot. The ingot was to be valued for the purity of its composition,
that is to say what its weight in silver could afford. It is the earliest counterfeit silver currency
presently known. The activities of portioning and cutting were most likely among the techniques
of purity verification in this period. The chocolate bar ingot from Beth Shean with its copper
core demonstrates both the need for this type of verification, and the means by which it could
have been circumvented. Its overall design suggests that tests for surface composition were
anticipated, probably by touchstone.
Examples of another distinctive kind of ingot known as ‘rolled tongues’ or ‘folded
ingots’ were found among the hoards from Tel Miqne-Ekron (Golani and Sass 1998, 58) and
possibly Beth Shean (Rowe 1940, pl. 29:29). This ingot type is relatively rare and those
from Cisjordan are best compared to these eighth century examples from the
Zincirli hoards (Fig. 7) that contained the largest known concentration of this type (von
Luschan 1943, pl. 58:b–f). It may be that they were strung together in antiquity as the museum
15
16
Gen. 33:19, Josh. 24:32, Job 42:11. Another possible identification is bes.a kesep̄ (Meshorer 1976, 52; Golani and
Sass 1998, 60), cf. Hdt. 3.96.
For an early and interesting discussion see Costard (1750).
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Figure 7
‘Rolled-tongue’ ingots from Zincirli (VAM photograph).
photograph suggests, but so far there is no evidence that they might have been a kind of
jewellery.
Perhaps motivated by a wish to assist the link between the hoard from Tel Dor and
coinage, Stern noted the hoard’s relative paucity of jewellery and described it as primarily
‘made up of small, flat tokens cast in the shape of small coins and Hacksilber’ (1998, 50).
By Hacksilber he seems to have meant cut ingots as opposed to cut jewellery – the term
Hacksilber usually indicates the possibility of both. In any case, such ‘tokens’ (Fig. 8) occur in
several of the hoards from Cisjordan, including Eshtemoa where Balmuth suggested they were
ring-bezels (1976, pl. 1, fig. 2) and used them to illustrate the relationship between jewellery,
currency and coinage. It should be emphasized that these tokens or bezels have been flattened
by work and are not thick, globular dumps like the pre-weighed examples found in the
Artemision deposit; nor is there any evidence so far that some were pre-weighed. Dumps tend
to be oval rather than round and are rough underneath, smooth and concave above, apparently
made by pouring a quantity of molten metal onto some rough surface and letting it cool
(Robinson 1951, 162). Such dumps were found (often portioned) in hoards mentioned here,
including at Akko, Beth Shean, Ein Hofez, Eretria (below), Megiddo, Tekke (below), and Tel
Miqne-Ekron. Other common shapes not discussed here include fragments of sheet-silver, wire,
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SEALED SILVER IN IRON AGE CISJORDAN AND THE ‘INVENTION’ OF COINAGE
Figure 8
‘Token’ from Dor (author).
toggle-pins, what appear to have been large block-shaped ingots, flat ‘tongue’-shaped ingots and
cup (?) handles.
Jewellery and fragments from jewellery-shaped objects are nearly as ubiquitous as
the chocolate bar ingots. Many have asked why the jewellery found in these hoards should
be identified as currency, particularly the undamaged examples. Again, a silver object, whatever
its shape, had a value that was fundamentally monetary. Its placement in hoards alongside
Hacksilber and ingots foregrounds its function as stored wealth. Since work generally adds value
to metal beyond its intrinsic worth we might expect that the least refined pieces of jewellery often
found their way into ‘currency’ hoards first. This is certainly the case for most of the Cisjordan
hoards. The vast majority lack decoration or are cursorily decorated with incised lines and the like.
Intentionally chiselled, twisted and otherwise mutilated pieces are the norm (Figs. 9–10). The 1992
cache from Tel Miqne-Ekron is an exception; it contained mostly complete jewellery pieces and
lacked broken jewellery and silver scrap (Golani and Sass 1998, 58–9, fig. 9). On the other hand,
some of the complete jewellery pieces were worn and dented so that Gitin and Golani later
considered it a possible indication of the hoard’s primary function as stored wealth (2001, 33).
Powell has suggested the identification of coiled rings (also called hair-rings and
spiral-rings) with ‘rings’ mentioned in Old Akkadian, Ur III, Old Assyrian and Old Babylonian
texts (Fig. 11a). Some appear to have been a kind of ‘ring money’ with weights intended
to approximate multiples of the shekel (Powell 1978). Their descriptions in texts ‘. . . make
it virtually certain that these objects were designed for the purpose of storing the metal in a
convenient form that could be used either for trade, by putting it on a balance and weighing it
or, by melting it, for the manufacture of other items’ (ibid. 219). Curtis has discussed
the widespread use of this form as both ingot and ornament in parts of the Near East and Europe
in relation to the coiled rings found in the silver hoard from Nush-i Jan (1984).17 A
pair of gold armlets in the Cesnola collection from Cyprus (di Cesnola 1878, 306–7) present
unrecognized examples of this type. Each had a coiled shape and weighed within the range of
a ‘Babylonian’ mina, 500 g and 510 g.18 Coiled rings of silver and their fragments occur in
the hoards from Arad, Beth Shean, Eshtemoa, Megiddo, and Tel Miqne-Ekron attesting to
17
18
See also Sollberger (1956, 23) and Michalowski (1978).
The originals acquired by the Metropolitan Museum were stolen in 1887. The ‘Babylonian’ mina does not need
to indicate an object’s Babylonian origin as it occurs in many extra-Babylonian contexts. The sizes of coiled
rings vary greatly, e.g. those from Miqne weigh under 15 g.
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Figure 9
Damaged jewellery from Ein Hofez (author).
Figure 10
Chiselled jewellery from Beth Shean (M. Lavi and N. Panitz-Cohen).
their widespread use in Cisjordan during the Iron Age, but the weights of all require further
study.
Hoarded rings in the form of continuous or nearly continuous silver bands are often
identified as ‘bracelets’ (Fig. 12). This was clearly one of their functions, but at Bronze Age Tell
el-Ajjul (Petrie 1934) and elsewhere in Cisjordan these were often deliberately chiselled into
rods that are now recognizable as fragments of this ingot type because they exhibit the same
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Figure 11
(a) coiled ring, (b) wire, (c–d) ‘rods’ from Ajjul (P. Finnerty).
general dimensions and sometimes the same decorative incisions as the intact rings or ‘bracelets’
(Fig. 11c–d). Excavators uncovered examples of this type of ring and its fragments at Beth Shean
(Mazar 1997), and Gezer (Macalister 1912, 99, fig. 286); at least those from the Iron Age Zincirli
hoards were interlinked at the time of deposition.19 Some of the rings from Ajjul were not large
enough to have been worn on a woman’s wrist while fragments of others suggest they might
have been as large as objects usually called torques. The individual weights of the rings and
their fragments from Ajjul and the Cisjordan hoards still require study, nevertheless some have
been found in what could be considered numismatic contexts – that is, they were wrapped in
sealed bundles of cloth that also contained ingots, jewellery and Hacksilber.
sealed metals before greco-lydian coinages
The 34 Iron Age hoards from Cisjordan contained at least 33 groups of silver wrapped
in cloth, but most have not survived time or excavation well (Fig. 13). In each case, only very
fragmentary remnants of linen adhered to the bundles. As the cloth disintegrated, the individual
pieces of silver were held together in their original groupings primarily by the corrosion products
19
These were also silver and survive only as drawings in the Register of Finds, now at the Vorderasiatisches
Museum in Berlin (no. 3726).
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Figure 12
Silver from Ajjul (P. Finnerty).
on their surfaces. Those from Dor and Ashkelon found during the past six years are the best
preserved.20
Stern correctly identified the 17 bundles of linen-wrapped silver found in a single vessel
at Tel Dor as what the Hebrew Bible refers to as a s.ror kesep̄, often translated as ‘money-bag’
(1998, 48). However, Genesis 42:35 indicates that there are differences between bags or sacks
and a s.ror kesep̄ worth clarifying, ‘. . . as [Joseph’s brothers] emptied their sacks, behold, every
man’s s.ror kesep̄ was in his sack’.
Here the Hebrew word for sack is saq. S.ror, however, is related to the verbal idea of
‘binding’. Kesep̄ means both money and silver, as the French argent. Thus a s.ror kesep̄ may be
better translated as a bundle of money (or silver), in the sense that bundles are made of collected
materials that are tied or bound. There is adequate evidence to indicate that a s.ror kesep̄ was at
least occasionally a kind of sealed silver. Bullae associated with the bundles from Dor (Stern
20
With exceptions from Ashkelon, Keisan and possibly Megiddo the contents of bundles found intact have been
cleaned, mixed with pieces found within and outside other bundles and not marked or stored in a way that would
permit reconstruction of the original bundles. In some cases the bundles were so damaged by the elements that
it was not clear at the time of excavation which pieces had originally belonged to which bundles; see for example,
Golani and Sass (1998, 57).
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Figure 13
Bundle from twelfth century Beth Shean (M. Lavi and N. Panitz-Cohen).
1998, 2001), Phoenician Tell Keisan (Nodet 1980, 325), and Old Babylonian Larsa (Bjorkman
1993)21 support this conclusion. Iron Age bullae from the Levant and Anatolia were usually
circular or ovoid lumps of clay attached to objects (Fig. 14), sometimes by strings,22 and
impressed with a seal or stamp. Neither of the images sealed on the bullae from Dor or Keisan
include a name (Figs. 15–16), but those found with the multi-metallic hoards in the ÉBABBAR
temple at Old Babylonian Larsa mentioned, among other things, the name of an official who
pays/weighs-out silver (Bjorkman 1993, 9–10). Other associated bullae fragments record that
the weight of an unnamed commodity had been checked (Arnaud et al. 1979, 17). This is another
case where the material used to wrap the bundles had disintegrated to such a degree that it
was unclear what was inside each at the time of excavation, but the excavators seem to agree
that they contained precious metals at the very least (Arnaud 1980, 129) and that bullae were
used to ‘lock the little sacks’ and indicate their weights (Huot et al. 1979, 104; Arnaud 1980;
21
22
Bjorkman concluded that the bags at Larsa were probably made of leather since no ‘tell-tale crisscross lines’ of
woven textile appeared on the backs of the three bullae fragments she was able to examine (1993, 8–9). Since
the impressions of woven fabric would not necessarily remain on the backs of the bullae or be visible in the
photograph consulted by Bjorkman, I am inclined to side with the excavators of the Larsa hoards who seemed
to prefer textile (Arnaud et al. 1979, 6 and 13; Huot et al.1980, 104). It may be worth comparing the hoards from
Cisjordan where textiles were used, particularly linen, and the ‘textiles for wrapping’ in the Old Assyrian caravan
accounts (Veenhof 1972, 28–36). In any case, nothing here depends on their having been made of a particular
material.
The impressions of strings were still visible on the backs of bullae from Keisan and Larsa.
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Figure 14
Sixth century bulla, probably from Palestine (British Museum photograph).
Bjorkman 1993, 8). The impressions on the bullae from Dor or Keisan might be interpreted in
a variety of ways, for example Stern suggested the bundles from Dor might have belonged to
a single person (a Phoenician merchant) since the same seal decorated with interlocking scrolls
was applied to each bulla (1998, 50–51; 2001, 23). In the light of one of the most typical
functions of bullae in the ancient Near East, that is as seals or verifications of various kinds of
administrative activities, it is likely that a bulla on a s.ror kesep̄ was used to indicate that the
material had been reviewed or prepared in some official manner.
The incidence of two bundles from Keisan weighing 24.5 g and 25 g suggests their
weights were not random, but the standard against which they were weighed is not known. The
bundles from Dor appear to have been prepared so that they met a mina-weight before they
were sealed with bullae. Each of the bundles appears to have been roughly the same size but
only one bundle has been separated and cleaned; its total weight was 490.5 g (Stern 1998, 48).23
23
A bundle weighing c.450 g was recorded in an initial report that seems to have been a source for Israel Museum
records stating the same. Both records are unpublished and appear to be mistaken.
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Figure 15
Example of bullae used to seal bundles from Dor (P. Finnerty).
Figure 16
Bullae used to seal bundles from Tell Keisan (P. Finnerty).
Stern explained that we know very little about Canaanite-Phoenician weights in this period so
that it is unclear what weight standard is reflected in the 490.5 g-bundle. His tentative metrology
was based on the royal Judean shekel of 11.5 g of the eighth–seventh centuries and an assumed
mina of 60 shekels. This would mean that the hoard consisted of c.12.3 minas (Stern 2001, 21,
24). No balance weights have been recovered in this region until the tenth century, but Dever
has correctly taken these hoards as an indication of the use of weighed silver as money (2001,
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table 1
ED XRF elemental analyses of 15 pieces of bundled silver from Tel Dor
Sample ID#
Object Description
%Au
%Ag
%Cu
%Pb
DOR001
DOR002
DOR003
DOR004
DOR005
DOR006
DOR007
DOR008
DOR009
DOR010
DOR011
DOR012
DOR013
DOR014
DOR015
indeterminate ingot fragment
‘token’
pre-portioned ingot
finger(?) ring fragment
indeterminate ingot fragment
indeterminate Hacksilber
indeterminate ingot fragment
indeterminate ingot fragment
indeterminate ingot fragment
fragment of folded sheet
fragmented sheet
indeterminate ingot fragment
indeterminate ingot fragment
‘token’
indeterminate ingot fragment
2.8
2.0
2.8
>0.2
2.8
2.1
1.2
2.1
0.9
2.1
0.9
1.6
1.9
3.2
2.6
96.3
96.5
94.1
99.8
95.1
94.6
96.5
96.4
96.0
96.8
98.2
97.0
96.3
95.2
95.5
0.7
1.2
2.5
0.2
1.8
3.0
1.7
1.4
3.1
1.1
0.9
0.9
1.5
1.2
1.6
0.2
0.3
0.7
>0.2
0.3
0.3
0.7
0.2
<0.2
<0.2
<0.2
0.4
0.3
0.4
0.2
50). Apart from the hoard-evidence we know that the Egyptians, Canaanite-Phoenicians and
Assyrians under whose influence Cisjordan came during the Early Iron Age had well-established
histories of using balance weights. Thus, it is worth considering the hoard’s weight using the
c.8.3 g ‘Babylonian’ shekel that was used by many peoples including both the Bronze Age
Canaanites and Iron Age Phoenicians (see below). A 60-unit mina based on this shekel would
hover around 500 g; the missing 8–10 g from the 490 g-bundle from Dor could easily be
accounted for by the loss of one or two small pieces of silver due to the disintegration of the
linen wrapper. With the hoard’s total weight of 8.5 kg and the number of bundles (17) in mind,
it seems much more probable that the bundles were based on the 8.3–8.6 g shekel (thus 60-unit
minas of about 500 g): 17 ¥ 500 g = 8.5 kg.
Additionally, Table 1 presents elemental analyses by Stos of 15 samples taken by the
author from the Dor Hoard that suggest that the purity of silver in the bundles had been checked
or regulated. Each of the sampled silver objects was quite pure. Based on these results the
bundles seem to have comprised silver that had been monitored for a composition within the
very narrow range of 94–99 per cent silver. The inordinately high levels of gold still require an
explanation. They do little to implicate a Spanish source (cf. Stern 2001, 125) since gold-rich
silver objects are known from this region as early as the fourth millennium (Rehren et al. 1996)
and suggests that regulation was against debasement. It would also be acceptable to add about
2 per cent copper to the thinner objects from the Dor Hoard (tokens, sheet) since it was not
possible to discard any surface metal when sampling. In any case, the available analyses indicate
that the bundles from Dor exhibit fundamental qualities typically associated with coinage:
precious metal of denominational24 weight and regulated composition, sealed with a device.
Compositional analyses of silver found in the bundles from Arad indicate that it was nearly pure,
around 96 per cent (Aharoni 1980, 40), but this, of course, does not mean that silver outside of
bundles would not have been as pure in some instances. Although most definitions of coinage
24
This word’s semantic field is almost as wide as ‘coin’, and in fact sometimes means ‘coin’. Here ‘denominate’
simply means to assess weight according to one of the grades or degrees in a series of values, measures or weights.
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table 2
Iron Age silver hoards from Cisjordan40
SITE
(no. of hoards > 1)
DATE
(century BC)
METALS
WEIGHTS
(metals only)
Akko
Arad
Ashkelon (2)
Beth Shean A
9–8th
10th
12th
11th
silver
silver
silver
silver, gold
Beth Shean B
Beth Shean C
Beth Shean D (2–3)
Dor
Ein Gedi
Ein Hofez (3)
Eshtemoa (5)
Gezer A
Gezer B
silver
silver (+ gold armlet)
silver
silver
silver
silver
silver
silver (+ bronze pins)
silver
Gezer C
Megiddo A (3)
Megiddo B
Shechem
Tell Keisan
Tel Miqne-Ekron A
Tel Miqne-Ekron B
Tel Miqne-Ekron C
Tel Miqne-Ekron D
Tel Miqne-Ekron E
Tel Miqne-Ekron F
11th
12th–11th
12th
11th–10th
7th–6th
10th–9th
11th–9th
9th–6th?
‘12th Dynasty of the
Hyksos’?
10th?
11th
11th
Iron Age?
11th
7th
7th
7th
7th
7th
7th
257.6 g
202.69 g
99.84 g
Ag 2,423.8 g
Au 481.95 g
2,434.65 g
Ag 1,332 g
TOTALS 34
12th–7th
–
8.5 kg
1,078 g
>1,200 g
26 kg
silver
silver (+ bronze arrowhead)
‘bronze’ and silver
silver (+ 1 pc bronze)
silver
silver
silver (+?)
silver (+ gold droplet)
silver
silver
silver
CLOTH/
BUNDLES
2
2
yes
yes
2 or 3
17
3
yes
>45.16 g
354 g
24.5 g
259.4 g
Ag 954 g; Au 2 g
Ag 89.7 g
73 g
19 g
Ag > 45,090 g
Au 483.95 g
>4
2
> 33
do not specify that a coinage must have a regulated composition, this is sometimes an underlying
assumption. Recent scientific studies suggest that silver was added to the early electrum coinage
of Lydia so that the gold content would be very consistent, ‘a necessary requirement
for coinage’; Lydian gold and silver coinages typically contained 98 per cent or more of the
principal metal (Cowell and Hyne 2000, 173). The Greeks also regulated the composition
of their early silver coinages so that, with few exceptions, they were of ‘pure’ silver
(Kraay 1976, 317).
The written record also supports the hypothesis that seals were attached to precious
metals in different parts of the Near East as a means of guaranteeing their composition.
An Amarna Letter from Burna-Buriaš to Amenophis IV demonstrates that gold was sometimes
sealed to verify its weight and purity; weight and purity are the same concept in this case.
My brother should make a [personal] check, then my brother should seal and send it to me.
Certainly my brother did not check the earlier (shipment of) gold that my brother sent to me.
40
Hoards are counted by containers; if there were no containers then by bundles; if there were no bundles then by
individual pieces that survived as groups.
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table 3
Individual weights of chocolate bar ingots from Amathus
Gold
2.2 g,
3.1 g,
3.3 g,
3.4 g
3.7 g,
3.8 g,
4.2 g,
4.5 g,
4.9 g,
5.0 g,
5.5 g,
5.6 g
Silver
2.2 g
3.1 g
3.3 g
3.7 g
4g
4.2 g
4.5 g
4.9 g
5.2 g
5.5 g
Total of ingots 22
Total weight 89.8 g
1.3 g
1.9 g, 1.9 g
2.1 g, 2.1 g
2.3 g
2.6 g, 2.7 g
2.7 g, 2.9 g
3.2 g, 3.2 g
3.3 g, 3.3 g
3.4 g, 3.4 g
3.7 g, 3.8 g
4.3 g, 4.3 g
4.8 g, 4.8 g
5.1 g, 5.1 g
5.1 g, 5.2 g
5.6 g
5.9 g
6.2 g, 6.3 g
6.4 g, 6.4 g
7.1 g
Total of ingots 33
Total weight 132.4 g
It was only a deputy of my brother who sealed it and sent it to me. When I pu[t] the 40 minas
of gold that were brought to me in a kiln, not (even) [10, I sw]ear, appeared’ (EA 7; trans.
Moran 1992, 14 citing Oppenheim 1967, 113).
‘Kiln’ should probably read ‘cupel’ as this letter seems to describe the technique of
cupellation by which base metals were removed from silver and gold.25 We do not know where
the seal was applied in this instance; it may have been to ceramic vessels, cloth bags,
accompanying tablets or something else, but there is no clear evidence of metal impressed with
‘seals’ before c.575–560 (The Barrekub ingots were inscribed and apparently exceptional).
Caravan accounts from the kārum Kaneš and Aššur describe similar practices in the Old
Assyrian period that indicate seals were used to guarantee the quantities of shipments. One text
records a complaint about silver missing from a sealed shipment, ‘30 minas of silver . . . with
your seals Kukkulānum has brought. We checked the silver and (found) 2/3 mina of silver
missing’ (CCT 3:27a; duplicate KTS 38a; trans. Larsen 1967, 11). The Old Assyrian texts
repeatedly mention sealed bundles or packets of metals wrapped in textiles that are somewhat
analogous to a s.ror kesep̄. Three types of these packets are of particular interest: a šuqlum, a
nēpišum and a riksum. A šuqlum was a sealed packet of tin of standardized weight (normally 65
minas, a standard weight shipped by a donkey caravan). The word is derived from šaqālum, and
denotes ‘something concrete, which has been weighed out, a unit of weight’ (Veenhof 1972,
14–15). Various expressions and abbreviations suggest that šuqlātum were tied up with ropes to
25
Cupels were porous vessels made of clay or bone-ash designed to absorb base metals as oxides and leave behind
purified silver and gold. Such objects are rarely identified in excavations or texts (although see Kassianidou
et al. 1995 for some recently recovered and well-documented examples from Monte Romero).
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which bullae were attached (ibid. 31). Similarly nēpišū contained sealed silver or gold in weights
ranging between 2–3 and 30 minas. Generally a riksum denotes something ‘tied up or bound
together’. These contained a variety of objects and were not always mentioned in association
with seals (Veenhof 1972, 34). Various definitions have been suggested for riksum; Larsen
proposed the meaning of ‘bundles of both silver, gold and tin . . .’ (1967, 55). Riksū of silver
and gold were smaller than nēpišū, containing amounts between a few shekels to nearly two
minas and a nēpišum might contain several riksū. Breaking the seal of a šuqlum or a nēpišum en
route was illegal. A riksum placed inside a šuqlum was protected by its seals, but formed a
separate measured unit at the same time. In general, there was a tendency to arrive at a ‘round
figure’ like 5, 10 or 15 minas for shipments of silver (Veenhof 1972, 32–5). Veenhof points out
some comparisons of particular interest for the present discussion:
One might compare rakāsum, ‘to bundle together’ in ARM 8, 89, 14 where the objects are
silver items, and ‘silver scrap’ (s.imittu; CAD S. 199b, 6). In later periods riksum is once used
to denote a ‘bundle (of scrap metal)’ [for the smith to make into ingots], cf. S. CAD 174a s.v.
* s.ı̄du (NB) (1972, 34).
Again, it is not always clear where the seals were applied. There are indications that
they were sometimes attached to the bundles by ropes or strings, but they could have been placed
on accompanying tablets in other instances. In any case, the functions of the seals rather than
their placement are the primary issue here. The seals were at times clearly intended to protect
the contents of bundles against illicit manipulations en route, and in so doing they verified that
a quantity of metal had been controlled. In the case of a šuqlum the weight was standardized at
65 minas, the weights of nēpišū and riksū were denominated in the weight and monetary units
of minas and shekels.
VAS 16 31:17 (OB) records a complaint about the quality of silver leading to a request
for sealed silver, ‘you have sent me silver which is not fit for business transactions, I am
returning the silver to you send me the silver (in) a sealed bag’ (KCAD 150, 2 s.v. kaniktu). To
this and the complaints of Burna-Buriaš mentioned above we may compare Kroll’s assumption
that ‘An earring or a family’s broken silver cup was as negotiable in the balance as an ingot
from the king’s foundry’ in the ancient Near East prior to c.600 (2001b, 202).
2 Kings 12: 9–10 also describes one manner of making and using bundles.
And whenever they saw that there was a lot of money in the chest, the king’s scribe and the
high priest would come up and put the silver accumulated in the House of the Lord into
bundles26 and they would count it. Then they would deliver the silver that was weighed-out
(?) to the overseers of the work, who were in charge of the House of the Lord.
The sources cited here offer a glimpse at the ways seals functioned when they were
attached to metal in different parts of the Near East prior to c.600. They were obviously used
for recording such commonplace practices as weighing and storing commodities and marking
ownership, but therein lie the roots of numismatics. Such roots of course run deep and extend
to the Bronze Age Aegean world where, at Early Helladic Lerna for instance, they have been
associated with administrative practices. The hoards from Old Babylonian Larsa indicate that
bundles there were sealed to verify that an official had checked the weights as well as to provide
26
From s.-r-r.
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a record of the weights checked. At Dor, it appears that pieces of high-quality silver were
bundled into groups of mina-weight and then sealed. At Keisan the two bundles of 24.5 and
25 g suggest the bundles were prepared to conform to the same denomination and not sealed
simply after their (what would have otherwise been random) weights had been checked. The
idea that the sealing of bundles, other containers or tablets was at least on some occasions
indicative of a purity check is supported by the uniform composition in the Dor samples as well
as the complaints recorded in Egyptian and Assyrian sources. Further, Old Assyrian caravan
accounts demonstrate the existence of sealed metals denominated in standard weights. The
integrity of a metal’s weight was at times legally guaranteed within bundles in the sense that
violations of the seals en route were illicit. Such practices stand in marked contrast to the old
notion still circulating in numismatic discussions (Kroll 2001b, 200 citing Le Rider 2001),
namely that Near Eastern bullion was necessarily ‘anonymous’ and thus unrelated to the
‘creation’ of Greco-Lydian coinages.
sealed metals and coinage
The discussion up to this point was not meant to be a complete summary of all available
evidence, but merely enough to illustrate the use in various periods and regions of ingots or
metallic articles set to standard weights, individual pieces and hoards of Hacksilber of apparently
random weights, and Hacksilber wrapped in sealed bundles of standard weights. It is possible
to understand these practices in the abstract as representing linear developments towards coinage
in a theoretical model where Greco-Lydian coinages constitute the end – particularly when
Seltman’s (1955, 1) definitions of currency, money and coin are consulted: metal when used to
facilitate the exchange of goods is currency; currency when used according to specific standards
is money; money stamped with a device is coin. Accordingly, ingots and Hacksilber of random
weights constitute metallic currency, when these were pre-weighed or bundled according to a
weight standard they became money, when bundles of standard weight were sealed with bullae
they became a kind of coin.27 Such a linear model makes it possible to view sealed bundles from
Dor as a conceptual missing link between unmarked ingots of standard weight and ‘sealed’
Greco-Lydian coinages. But rather than understanding Greco-Lydian coinages as an end, it
would be more accurate to see them as different manifestations of the same fundamental
principles of using seals to verify standard weight (and purity) of metallic money that were
present in the Near East prior to c.600. The extraction of these defining qualities and their
application to non-Greek materials is neither an example of sophistic simplification nor an
unsophisticated oversight of complexities, but a necessary abstraction that objectivity demands.
Not only have the fundamental concepts of coinage continued to be expressed in a variety of
forms so that we have been compelled to make distinctions between kinds of coined metals,
Near Eastern peoples had no initial interest in adopting it in its Greco-Lydian form – or, as
Powell puts it, ‘[Mesopotamians], obviously, were not impressed by it’ (1996, 39). It seems that
Near Eastern peoples had availed themselves of flexible monetary and ‘coining’ practices that
suited their purposes for millennia, of which Greco-Lydian style coinage eventually became
only one.
Kroll’s ideas that (Greek-style) coinage lasted because it ‘was a far more convenient
and efficient exchange medium than metal bullion’ by virtue of its ‘obviating weighing and
27
N.B. He says ‘coin’, not coinage. Although rarely stated, the latter usually implies something consecutive.
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assaying’ and that the first silver coins were struck in Greece because they allowed the ‘states’
to profit through overvaluation (Kroll 1998, 230) may be fully substantiated at some point
within Archaic Greek contexts, but convenience is a relative concept, as the continued use of
Hacksilber and bullion (sometimes in the form of coins or their fragments) long after the
introduction of Greek-style coinages indicates. This immediately brings to mind the
aforementioned example of the deliberately fractioned coin from Sardis, but Udovitch’s study
of medieval-Islamic ‘packaged and labelled purses’ supports the point most vividly. In his
discussion of merchant-banking activities he cites the common exchange and transfer of specie
in the form of sealed ‘purses’ containing coins to facilitate payments both locally and
internationally. The number of coins and their bulk value in money of account were indicated
on seals affixed to the ‘purses’ so that they ‘made settlement of accounts much more convenient,
of course, by obviating the need to weigh, assay and evaluate coins for every individual
transaction’ (1979, 267).
In other words, Greco-Lydian coinages were not necessarily ends in themselves, nor
are they precise models to which all objects identified as kinds of coined or ‘coin-like’ metal
have conformed. One might compare token coins (of which three sub-groups exist: monetarytokens, semi-monetary tokens, and non-monetary tokens), the contorniates, the bronze and lead
‘tesserae’ that may have sometimes functioned to facilitate distributions of bread or wine
(Grierson 1975, 181), the billon coinage of Lesbos, the fifth century ‘pyramid’ pieces of bronze
from Acragas whose shape and dot-symbols indicating value resemble Near Eastern tokens used
to tally commodities28 much more than they do Greek coins, and the sixth century ‘arrowhead
coins’ from Thrace (Gerasimov 1938; Balbanov 1982), to name a few. These objects present
some grey areas that will not be clarified here. The ‘arrowhead coins’, for instance, do not bear
a seal but conform to a consistent shape. One might ask how such objects could be considered
coined metal when they were not stamped. Another might argue that a bundle of metal cannot
be a coin despite its having been set to a standard weight and sealed. At this point the futility
of a categorical approach to the subject becomes clear.
It would be appropriate at this point to make more detailed comparisons of the
differences or similarities in the recognition of seals on bullae compared to those on GrecoLydian coinages, the concepts of denominations, circulation, consecutive issues, over-valuation,
merchant involvement, state-regulation and so on. There are important questions to ask and
answer, but the fragmentary state of the bundles from Cisjordan and the fact that ‘we know
nothing about the function of the earliest coinage’ (Howgego 1995, 3) encourage an hiatus.29 It
may be worth pointing out that we currently know more about the way seals functioned on Old
Assyrian bundles by virtue of the caravan accounts than we do about their significance on the
earliest Greco-Lydian electrum and silver coins. In any case, Howgego’s definition of a coin as
‘a piece of money made of metal which conforms to a standard and bears a design’ (ibid. 1)
poses no barrier to the identification of a s.ror kesep̄ of standardized weight sealed with a bulla
as a kind of coin, except that the metal itself was not stamped and more than one piece of metal
was used to create the monetary component.
Although obvious differences exist between a Greek coin and a sealed bundle of
standard weight, an attempt to consider these sealed bundles as a kind of coined metal only in
terms of how well they conform to a given conception of Greco-Lydian coinage would be
28
29
Compare recently published examples from Tel Atij in Syria (Fortin 1998, 18–19).
See Price (1983) for a brief discussion of some of the possible functions of early Greco-Lydian coinages.
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Figure 17
Phanes issue (British Museum photograph).
foolish. A s.ror kesep̄ was not a Greco-Lydian coin, the functions of early Greco-Lydian coinages
are not well understood, and conceptions of the ‘earliest coinage’ have been formulated almost
exclusively on western models. In the end, sealed bundles and Greco-Lydian coinages share
fundamental qualities that their differences cannot obscure; these shared qualities make both of
them kinds of coined metal. In other words, the bundles and bullae place the study of Hacksilber
into the realm of what could be called early numismatics since at least in some cases we are
dealing with metal of a standardized weight and purity, sealed with a device. Regardless of all
the unresolved disputes about purpose, we have been defining Greco-Lydian coinages by the
same criteria.
While our knowledge of sealed bundles in Cisjordan is new, scholars have long been
aware of indications that Near Eastern practices are embedded in Greco-Lydian coinage. Not
only has the art of signets or seals been considered cognate with that of coins (Boardman 1964,
98), but cognate functions have been suggested as well (Balmuth 1971, 5–6, 1976, 28; Wallace
1988, 207).30 The early electrum issue bearing the legend, ‘I am the seal of Phanes’ assists the
link (Fig. 17).31 Additionally, Head proposed the Near Eastern derivation of weight standards
of early electrum and silver coinages early on (1887, xxxvii) and although some of his
metrological observations require modification, the wholesale incorporation of the Semitic word
‘mina’ into the Greek system of reckoning provides a general and irrefutable indication of
influence.
Nevertheless, many scholars still express uncertainty that contact with the Near East
beyond Lydia provided much of a stimulus to Greek coinages, particularly silver coinages, since
none of the seminal works recognized evidence of the application of seals to metal prior to 600.
Recent research in classical scholarship looks for internal or Greek explanations, and ideological
30
31
Cf. Schaps who recognizes that ‘The seal of Shema, servant of Jeroboam, king of Israel, also looks in reproduction
. . . very much like a coin’, but sees no other connection between the two (2001, 93).
London, British Museum 123544; on its attribution to Ephesus, see Weidauer (1975, 68). Here the word for seal
is sēmos. N.B. The use of asēmos for ‘uncoined’ silver and gold (Thuc. 2.13, 6.8; Hdt. 9.41). On analogies for
the coining process in the technique of jewellers and goldsmiths see Jenkins (1972, 16–17).
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models are becoming popular. In this vein Kurke states ‘at least part of the reason silver became
the metal for Greek civic coinage was symbolic egalitarian opposition to the elitist identification
with gold’ (1999, 303–4). But current dating places the earliest silver coinages in Greece under
aristocracies (Kroll 2000b, 87). On the other hand, Howgego appropriately points out that
‘similarities in the character and behaviour of coinage throughout the Greek world strongly
imply that it is right to try to interpret coinage as a single phenomenon’ (1995, 15). The point
here is not to deny that localized ideologies are reflected in the coinages of individual cities,32
but to emphasize the relevance of the wider perspective.
mediterranean silver trade and greek silver coinage
Again, one aspect of this larger picture is the preference for silver. This preference
should have spread throughout Greece for a variety of reasons after its initial adoption at cities
like Aegina, Athens, Corinth and Sybaris. There is no doubt that the phenomenon was partly
assisted via the relationships between Greek cities, but the direction of influence is not always
straightforward; some colonies minted well before their mother-cities (Papadopoulos 2002). The
choice of electrum for coinage in western Anatolia and silver among the 100 or so Greek cities
minting by c.480 indicates the obvious, namely that regional availability of a metal was an
important factor in its being adopted for coinages. But it was not the only factor; many cities
without immediate access to silver mines chose to mint silver coinage and Siphnos, known for
its rich silver mines, minted very little.
Any discussion of the preference for silver is hardly aided by ‘Greek’ evidence, written
or material; our view of the earliest use of the silver standard in Greece is extremely murky.
One legend credits Pheidon of Argos for replacing iron spits with silver coins on the island of
Aegina (Strabo 8.358 and 376; Aelian, Var. Hist. 12.20, CIG 2374, v.45, Etym. Magn. s.v.
obeliskos). Although Pheidon lived more than a century before the earliest coins of Aegina
appear (Brown 1950, 177–204), the tradition may reflect that Pheidon was remembered for
‘having been the first to determine the weight of silver which would be accepted in his kingdom
as the equivalent value of the handful (drachma) of six [iron] spits’ (Kraay 1976, 314). Kroll
has recently used the laws of Solon, in which the silver standard was reformed, to argue that
uncoined silver likely served as the primary currency and money in some parts of Greece for a
century or more before the first silver coins were struck in Athens (1998). But as Kroll has
observed, our best material evidence for the monetary use of silver ingots in the Greek world
post-dates the first coinages (2000a, 2001a, 78). The unmarked dumps from the Artemision Pot
Hoard, once considered by Robinson as the primitive metallic currency out of which true coinage
developed (1951, 164), are now understood as contemporaries of the earliest coins (Howgego
1995, 2–3 citing Price 1983).33
On the other hand, Furtwängler has discussed two groups of ingots dated to around the
eighth century that bear witness to some extent of Kleinbarrenverkehr of precious metals in the
‘Greek world’ (1986, 156). The first is a c. eighth century deposit of jewellery, dumps and bars
buried in two ceramic vessels just inside the doorway of Tholos Tomb 2 at Khaniale Tekke, near
32
33
The use of civic emblems as types on silver coins provides a straightforward example (Jenkins 1972, 36).
Some or all may be contemporaries of the sealed coins in the Pot Hoard, but they are morphologically
representative of the pre-weighed dumps that were in use prior to c.600 at places like Eretria and Tekke.
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Knossos on Crete (Dunbabin 1944; Hutchinson and Boardman 1954, 215–19). Hutchinson and
Boardman at first suggested metrological relationships to Egyptian, Babylonian, Phoenician and
Euboic standards, but Boardman later stated that the hoard was likely the property of a jeweller
partly since the dumps and bars would have been a jeweller’s stock-in-trade and partly because
‘a currency of gold, silver and electrum dumps and bars in Crete about 800 BC – or for long
afterwards – is unthinkable’ (1967, 62–4). The vessels and tomb contained a variety of objects
which indicated foreign influence to such an extent that Boardman proposed the jeweller might
have been Near Eastern (Boardman 1967, 57–75).34 Nevertheless, the function of the ingots as
currency first proposed by Dunbabin (1944, 86) and taken up by Balmuth (1971, 4–5) has gained
ground again (Hoffman 1997, 197–211); Furtwängler has related the weights of the ingots (18/19
g, 16.5/17 g, and 7.25 g) to Egyptian, Babylonian and Phoenician standards (1986, 156) and
suggested that this metrology may indicate varying origins. On the other hand, the Canaanites
and Phoenicians are known to have used weight standards compatible with Babylonian and
Egyptian ones, so that the ingots and their weights may reflect Phoenician connections just as
the style of the jewellery with which they were associated does. For instance, Furtwängler’s
ingot of 7.25 g is based on what he calls a light Phoenician shekel. This should be related to the
7.4–7.6 g Egyptian shaty that was compatible with a shekel used in Late Bronze Age western
Asia (Heltzer 1994). The 7.6 g ‘shekel’ turns up again, not likely as a coincidence, as a
sub-division of the 11.4 g Judaean shekel variously called pym or pim and associated with the
Philistines (1 Sam. 13:20–1). Further, Furtwängler’s double kedet of 18/19 g is compatible with
the c.9.1–9.5 g shekel (Elayi and Elayi 1997, 321, 326) used by Phoenicians in the eighth century.
A shekel of 8.3 g-8.6 g, known as the Babylonian shekel, has also been associated with
Phoenicians in eighth century Tyre (ibid. 299, 326). All three units weighing c.7.4–7.6 g, 8.3–8.6
g, and 9.1–9.5 g are represented in the balance-weights of the Ulu Burun shipwreck where Pulak
associates them with the Canaanites (2000). Finally, Kroll has remarked most recently on the
relationship between the ‘Phoenician’ or ‘Babylonian’ shekel of 8.6 g and the Euboic stater of
17.4 g and its half, the Attic didrachm stater of 8.7 g (2001a, 82) and L. Peyronel has published
an interpretation of the weights associated with the Larsa ‘goldsmith’s’ hoard linking them to
what he calls the Syrian shekel of about 7.8 g (2001, 177–87).
The second of Furtwängler’s groups is an eighth century hoard contained in a Late
Geometric skyphos from the site of Eretria on Euboea, also well known for its eastern contacts.
The hoard was hidden under a foundation wall of an apsidal ‘house’ and contained about 510 g
of gold and electrum objects. Themelis interpreted it as a goldsmith’s hoard based on the
observation that the hoard contained ‘all the basic elements from which ancient jewellery was
made’, but once again there is no evidence for a jeweller or a smith of the sort discussed by
Bjorkman (1993). Furtwängler subsequently realized that the shapes of the objects recall those
in Near Eastern hoards and made the monetary connection (1986). The Eretria Hoard included
small, flattened discs of the sort called tokens by Stern and bezels by Balmuth (above).
Additionally the gold and electrum dumps (some portioned), bits of wire, fragments of fibulae,
and individual portions of chocolate bar ingots all have silver parallels in Cisjordan. Given
Euboea’s well-established contacts with the East in the eighth century, the morphological
similarities are not so surprising. Further, the aggregate weight of the objects is c.510 g which,
34
The hoard does not appear to have belonged to a jeweller (Hoffman 1997), but even if it had, jewellers would
have sometimes had stored metal of standard weight in their possession, that is to say money (see the discussion
of coiled rings above or well-known biblical passages such as Gen. 24:22 for examples).
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contra Themelis (1983) and Kroll (2001a, 78), certainly falls in the range of a ‘Babylonian’
mina. The ancients were rarely as precise as we would like them to have been when they weighed
out precious metals (see, for example, Powell 1978, 229). Weights of the ‘Babylonian’ shekel
often hover between 8.3 and 8.6 g making the range of a 60-shekel mina 498 g–516 g ± a few
grams due to inaccuracies, weight lost to corrosion of alloyed base metals, damage, and so on.
The shapes, the lack of any presented evidence for a smith or a foundry and the hoard’s aggregate
weight highlight its monetary function.
Material from Cyprus and Sicily may be added to Furtwängler’s examples. The gold
and silver chocolate bars from Amathus mentioned above are morphologically related to the
Cisjordan hoards and their paired weights recommended at least a partly monetary character.
While Amathus is often considered part of the Greek world, its material culture during the
Cypro-Geometric and Cypro-Archaic periods exhibits a strong Phoenician association (Christou
1996, 1998).35 Finally, Seltman wrote of a pellet of silver found with a small silver figurine of
Phoenician-Egyptianizing style of c.750–660 near the Ponte di Acragas on the southern Sicilian
coast (1955, 72). The pellet had the shape of a coin and was said to be on the Sicilian litra
standard. Thus, not only does our material evidence for the monetary use of precious metals
among ‘Greeks’ immediately prior to the development of Greco-Lydian coinages come from
sites or contexts well associated with the East, it also consists of ingots and ‘scrap’ of gold,
electrum and silver. In other words, no scholarship has yet identified a clear preference for silver
over other metals in the material record of the Greek world prior to the sixth century.36
It turns out that material linking Greeks and Hacksilber before coinage comes from
seventh century Cisjordan: three sampled objects from Tel Miqne-Ekron had lead isotope ratios
consistent with the mines at Laurion, two with Siphnos and two with Chalkidiki (Stos-Gale
2001, 62), whose shapes, in turn, associate them with both Phoenicians and Neo-Assyrians
(Golani and Sass 1998). Whereas the lack of material evidence for the use of silver as the primary
currency in pre-coinage Greece has led Kroll to suggest that Greek Hacksilber pre-dating
coinage has either not yet been excavated or has been melted down leaving no trace of its
existence (2001a, 78), Schaps prefers to take it as evidence of a more direct transition from spits
and cauldrons to coinage (2001, 97).
In any case, to better understand the overwhelming preference for silver among the
European Greeks minting coinages after about 575, it is much more helpful to consider the
question from a wider geographical perspective. Placing great emphasis on a few incompletely
recovered finds from the Mediterranean, Muhly has stated ‘Iron Age shipwrecks, then, did carry
metal cargoes, but no silver and also no tin’ (1998, 319). This does not mean that Iron Age ships
did not. The Iron Age hoards from Cisjordan represent the largest concentration of Hacksilber
hoards known to date, yet this region has no native source of silver. The phenomenon may be
partly explained during the Iron Age II period by the Neo-Assyrian demand for silver currency
from Levantine peoples, as Gitin has discussed in relation to the seventh century finds from Tel
Miqne-Ekron (1995, 69).37 The demand helped establish a relationship between Assyria, the
35
36
37
Cyprus’ association with the east is reflected in the legendary foundation by the sometimes-Syrian Kin’yras. Hdt.
5.104 and Diod. 14.98 record that the eastern orientation of Amathus in particular persisted to the time of the
Ionian Revolt.
There is material worthy of more attention than can be given here. For example, see Dakaronia’s discussion of
bronze rings that may have served as recognized values or weights in Early Iron Age Greece (1989) and the
numerous examples of coiled rings of silver in Iron Age Cypriot tombs (SEC).
See also Frankenstein (1979, 263–91).
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centre, and its periphery and extended periphery, in which vassal cities like Ekron and Ashkelon,
and the mercantile Phoenician port cities became building blocks of a long-distance trade system
that spanned the Mediterranean (Gitin 1998, 176). While Golani and Sass (1998, 61), Gitin and
Golani (2001) and Le Rider (2001) have recognized an increase in the use of silver during the
eighth–early sixth centuries in Cisjordan and beyond, the hoards from Arad, Ashkelon, Beth
Shean, Ein Hofez, Eshtemoa, Megiddo, Tel Dor, and Tell Keisan indicate that the hoarding and
bundling of silver to the near exclusion of other metals began to increase in Cisjordan around
the twelfth century and continued into the eighth–sixth centuries. Stern and Dever have noted
well that the massive hoard from Dor in particular stands contrary to the concept of a Dark Age
in Cisjordan during the twelfth–eleventh centuries and illustrates the sort of trade described in
the eleventh century Tale of Wen-Amon (Stern 2001; Dever 2001). As a result, the recent
redating of the Eshetmoa hoard to the eighth century by Kletter and Brand (written before the
publication of the hoard from Dor) stands on a misapprehension. After conceding that ‘. . . the
jugs, the jewellery, and the script [of the Eshtemoa Hoards] cannot yield precise dating . . .’,
Kletter and Brand proposed a date within the eighth century based on the idea that ‘the eighth
century is . . . a period in which accumulation of wealth is expected’ (1998, 150).
Overall the hoards from Iron Age Cisjordan are characterized by two distinguishing
features: (1) they exhibit a nearly exclusive preference for silver currency over other metals and
(2) there is much to recommend the hoards as the immediate precursors of Greek silver coinages.
Of course, silver had been used as money in many other parts of the Near East for some time,
but in Cisjordan its hoarding (sometimes in massive quantities) to the exclusion of other metals
was a new development in the Iron Age with only two relatively small Bronze Age antecedents
(above). Even jewellery from extra-hoard contexts appears to have been primarily silver in late
Iron Age Cisjordan (Golani and Sass 1998, 61). Bronze Age hoards and assemblages in Cyprus,
the Aegean and Cisjordan tend to be much more mixed in terms of metals and materials with
greater emphasis on gold and bronze so that they reflect the sort of trade known from the Amarna
Letters, as at Late Bronze Age Beth Shemesh. The well-known hoard from Stratum IV contained
several hundred items of jewellery crushed and corroded together. Objects included earrings,
beads, scaraboids and scarabs, seals, rings and varia for neck ornaments. Many of the items
were made of gold, though a larger number were carnelian and certain others were of serpentine,
diorite, rock crystal, bronze and paste (Grant and Wright 1939, 48). Again, the Cisjordan hoards
contained approximately 33 bundles of silver, 21 of which were clearly associated with bullae;38
the sealing of some of these metals after they had reached a standard weight places them in
numismatic contexts.
To the material record we may add written indications that silver was the preferred
currency and money in the region. The use of silver for payments is best attested in documents
from centres of power and trade in other parts of the Near East under whose influence Cisjordan
came during the Iron Age, but there are sources from Cisjordan as well. Schaps notes that ‘silver
captured the field entirely, and a merchant’s scales were, for the prophet Hosea, the sign of a
“Canaanite” merchant’ (2001, 94 citing Hos. 12:8). Other biblical examples include Gen.
23:15–16; Judges 5:19, and ostraca from Arad and Ashkelon record payments in silver as well
38
The distinctively spherical shape of bundles from Ashkelon, Arad and Megiddo suggests that they had been
bound; their shapes compare well with those from Keisan where we know strings and bullae were used.
Unfortunately any bullae associated with bundles would have been particularly susceptible to the destructive
forces of nature and excavation.
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(Aharoni 1981, 30; Stager 1996, 66). Assyrian economic influence is exemplified by a clay
sealing from Nineveh that records a maddattu (tribute) payment in silver made by Padi, King
of Ekron in 699 (Gitin and Golani 2001, 37 citing Millard 1965, 15–16; Postgate 1974, 21; Fales
and Postgate 1995, 21–2). Deutsch and Heltzer have also translated a c. seventh century ostracon
that uses what eventually became the typical abbreviation for kesep̄, the letter K. The preserved
lines show that the persons listed received from three to eight ‘K’ (1995, 92–103). Of course
the word shekel was frequently omitted but understood (as in Hos. 3:2). While an ability to
document clearly the monetary use of silver in the earlier centuries of the Iron Age in Cisjordan
would be helpful, such sources are not to be expected since the transition from an oral to a
written culture in this region takes place primarily under the influence of the Neo-Assyrians in
the eighth–seventh centuries (Schniedewind forthcoming). On the other hand, material evidence
in the form of the Cisjordan bundles, whose linen wrappings and bullae have what appear to be
much earlier Mesopotamian and Anatolian antecedents at places like Old Babylonian Larsa and
in the Old Assyrian caravan accounts, might also speak of Assyrian influence. The objects
contained in the Larsa Hoards allow the possibility of some morphological continuity as well;
the analogous types (with slight variation) include coiled rings, folded/rolled-tongue ingots and
bezels or tokens. The incidence of linen-wrapped silver at twelfth century Beth Shean in an
administrative context points to an Egyptian familiarity with the practice of bundling as well.
In short, as it is possible to speak of a proliferation of silver coinages in Greece during the late
sixth and early fifth centuries, it is possible to speak of a proliferation in the monetary use of
silver during the Iron Age in Cisjordan based on hoard evidence and the written record – but
are the two developments related?
‘Foreign’ trade has been considered a dubious stimulus to coinage since Kraay realized
that, with significant exceptions from northern Greece and Athens, Greek silver coins ‘tended to
stay within the areas in which they were minted’ and the non-Greek peoples with whom the Greeks
traded not only lacked coined metals but were ‘slow to adopt’ coinage after it had been introduced
to them. At the time, hoard evidence from Egypt, the Levant and Mesopotamia demonstrated that
coins made of nearly pure silver from Thraco-Macedonian cities and Athens had a useful function
as bullion in these regions, but since those exported were not among the earliest issues Kraay
concluded that, ‘. . . coinage was not devised to meet the needs of foreign trade, and that, in so far
as it came to do so, this was a secondary development’ (1964, 88). Our body of evidence for the
consideration of such questions has increased significantly since then, but the basic tenets of
Kraay’s foreign trade argument have not been overturned. Thus the influence that foreign trade
might or might not have exerted is still conceived primarily in terms of how it would have been
related to the purposes that the first coinages served (see Kurke 1999, 7–10).
In order to give the role of foreign trade in the development of coinages its due
recognition, it is necessary to distinguish between discussions about the purposes that the earliest
Greco-Lydian coinages may have served and the exploration of some of the external stimuli to
mint such coins. Since classicists working on the origins of coinage have not made much use
of Sherratt and Sherratt’s model of the ‘wider matrix of contemporary economic and political
activity of the early first millennium BCE’ (1993)39 into which the Cisjordan silver hoards and
the development of Greek silver coinages fit fairly well, its relevant points are paraphrased at
some length:
39
See also Wallerstein (1974).
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During the tenth–ninth centuries a desire for high-value metals instigated the Phoenician
revival or continuation of trade links to the central and western Mediterranean. Cyprus, Crete
and Rhodes acted as key staging points to sites in Anatolia, the Aegean and Sardinia.
Levantine traders were linked partly via Sardinia to the indigenous exchange cycles in the
western Mediterranean including peninsular Italy and stimulated the growth of local centres
like Lefkandi and Athens (364–6). In the 8th century the growth of Assyria increased the trade
and tribute drawn from Levantine cities, intensifying their quest for ‘high-value materials’
further west. Both Levantines and Aegeans participated in trading missions and colonial
foundations in the central Mediterranean. Density of east–west traffic in the northern
Mediterranean continued to increase. Westward maritime traffic followed the south Anatolian
coast from Cyprus to Rhodes and could then move along Crete up the west coast of Greece
and across to southern Italy and Sicily or through the Cyclades to Euboia and Attica or
counter-clockwise around the Aegean. These circumstances allowed the transmission of
aspects of oriental culture that were subsequently adapted to the needs of emerging political
ideologies in Greek city-states (366–9). Orientalization and the genesis of new ‘states’ moved
westward to Italy and Spain as the Neo-Assyrians, now at their height, intensified their
tribute demands on Levantine cities. The 7th century also witnessed the possible exclusion
of Phoenicians from trade routes across the Aegean while territorially based ethnic
consciousness took a harder edge (369–71). During the 6th century the Aegean area passed a
threshold in which cities were no longer agriculturally self-sustaining and had to be supported
by imports of grain – paid for, in part, by exports of silver (371 and 74).
conclusions
The Sherratts’ model lends perspective to the increase in silver hoards from Cisjordan
during the Iron Age, offers one of the means by which the Near Eastern practice of pre-weighing
metal and marking it with a device could have influenced Greeks and Lydians, provides a partial
explanation for the initial adoption of a silver standard at the great trading cities of Aegina,
Athens, and Corinth and the early appearance of coins from these city-states in the Near East,
as well as a plausible explanation for Aegean silver in an Iron II context at Tel Miqne-Ekron.
On the other hand, given the widespread, long-term and generalized use of seals to verify many
different kinds of commodities as witnessed in both written and archaeological records, it hardly
seems plausible or appropriate to identify a single stimulus to the adaptation of these practices
in Lydia around 600. Such developments in the Mediterranean economy should not obscure the
important role that overland trade routes in the Near East would have certainly played in the
transmission of silver as well as monetary practices during both the Bronze and Iron Ages.
The possibility of a bronze shortage and the subsequent rise of iron as the dominant
utilitarian metal in the Levant from about 1200–800 have often been observed (Muhly 1997, 13
and 1980, 47). Hoard evidence presented here indicates silver’s increasing importance
as a monetary metal in Cisjordan during the same period as well. Contrary to Kroll who
states ‘much of the silver that entered Greece during the 8th and 7th centuries probably
involved Phoenician middlemen’ (2001a, 88), the lack of eighth–seventh century Hacksilber
finds in European Greece, the availability of silver ore in the Aegean and the lead isotope
analyses of the seventh century Hacksilber from Tel Miqne-Ekron (see above) suggest that silver
would not have been entering Greece from ‘Phoenicia’, but leaving Greece via Phoenician
traders interested in bringing it to places like Cisjordan that had a demand for it, but no native
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source. In this way, and perhaps in competition with the Phoenicians at some point, European
Greeks became involved in the silver trade that had been developing in the Mediterranean in
the early first millennium partly under the influence of Neo-Assyrians whose economic
practices owed much to the use of the silver standard during the Bronze Age in Mesopotamia.
The increase in territorially-based ethnic consciousness mentioned by the Sherratts may help
explain the widespread use of civic emblems on coinages early on, but this requires further
investigation.
Coinage clearly stands on more than one tradition and this paper does not mean to
minimize details of cultural difference and specificity that must have contributed to its
development in Greece and Lydia. My primary aim has not been to offer a new definition of
coinage, but to demonstrate that the sealing of metals for weight and purity verification, by
which early coinages have been defined, was a widespread Near Eastern practice long before it
was a Greco-Lydian one. Further, the adaptation of these concepts evident in the first GrecoLydian coinages as well as the preference for silver coinages among the first European Greek
cities to mint follows the observation that ‘The Lydians became on land what the Phoenicians
were by sea, the mediators between Hellas and Asia’ (E. Curtius, Hist. Gr. 1.76).
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my gratitude to many people and institutions for their assistance as this
paper took shape, none of whom should be implicated in any errors I may have made: Y. Alexander, J.
Armstrong, M. Artzy, D. Ben-Ami, B. Brandl, A. Brody, A. Burnett, M. Dayagi-Mendels, S. Gitin, H.
Gitler, A. Golani, J.-B. Humbert, O. Ilan, H. Katz, H. Kim, Y. Magen, A. Mazar, J. Marzahn, N. PanitzCohen, L. Stager, E. Stern, V. Tatton-Brown, the Antiquities Office of Judaea and Samaria and the Israel
Antiquities Authority all made the hoards in their keeping available to me for study and often for sampling,
sometimes prior to their full publication. I benefited greatly from the educational opportunities and
financial assistance provided by C. Witherby, M. Witherby, the American Numismatic Society, the
American Schools of Oriental Research and the Endowment for Biblical Research Fund, the Center for
Materials Research in Archaeology and Ethnology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the
Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute and the Anita Cecil O’Donovan Research Fund,
the Institute for Aegean Prehistory, the Kress Foundation, and the Royal Numismatic Society and the
Nicholas Lowick Memorial Fund for Oriental Numismatic Research. P. Finnerty, M. Lavi , N. PanitzCohen and J. Rosenberg provided illustrations, Z.A. Stos provided ED XRF analyses, and C. ArnoldBiucchi, J. Dahl, C. Johnson, H. Lechtman, J. Magness, A. Mercado, N. Operstein and E. Sachar assisted
in ways too specific to itemize but too helpful not to acknowledge. J. Kroll (with whom I am occasionally
in polite disagreement), L. Carter, Englund and W. Schniedewind all generously gave at least one version
of this paper a critical reading and above all M.S. Balmuth, S. Gitin, S.P. Morris and J. Papadopoulos
have offered their continued support in a variety of ways for which I am most grateful.
Department of Classics and Cotsen Institute of Archaeology
University of California, Los Angeles
100 Dodd Hall
Los Angeles, CA 90095
USA
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APPENDIX: Iron Age Silver Hoards from Cisjordan
Hoards are catalogued accordingly: I = dates BC; II = contents; III = context and associated materials;
IV = weights of metals; V = primary publications; VI = disposition.
Akko:
I.
II.
V.
VI.
9th–8th centuries
Hacksilber and ingots, no jewellery. Most pieces were chocolate bar ingots; other shapes
included dumps and sheet fragments.
Area A,41 contained in one of two identical juglets found ‘either on a lower floor or in a fill –
set in and covered over’ (M. Artzy, unpublished Akko field diary entry 7 August, 1978).
257.6 g silver. It is no longer possible to determine whether the hoard contained any textile
remnants.
(Dothan 1992, 52)
University of Haifa
Arad:
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
10th century
Hacksilber, silver ingots and jewellery divided into two cloth-wrapped bundles.
Stratum XI, contained in a ceramic vessel.
202.69 g, no bronze or gold; weights of bundles not recorded.
(Aharoni, Y. 1968; Aharoni, M. 1980)
Uncertain, Tel Aviv?
III.
IV.
Ashkelon:
I.
Tentatively dated to the late 12th century
II.
Two small bundles of Hacksilber wrapped in linen, including one or two fragments of
jewellery but primarily minuscule fragments of worked silver.
III.
Data not available, associated with Philistine bichrome pottery.
IV.
Bundle 1 = 44.79 g after cleaning; bundle 2 = 55.05 g before cleaning.
V.
(Stager, L. 2000, personal communication; Balmuth 2001, 15)
VI.
Israel Museum
Beth Shean A:
I.
Rowe’s Ramses III = c.11th century (Mazar 1993, 219–20)
II.
Gold and silver ingots, jewellery, and Hacksilber.
III.
Stratum V, ‘Northern foundation deposit’ in Southern Temple Room 1029. Found in a
‘pot . . . from the east side of the centre column base, on the north side of the hall’. See Rowe
for associated materials. These include an alabaster bottle, basalt bowl and dish, cult objects,
fragments of a bronze bracelet, an ivory spoon, a fragment of a baking tray, a kernos, stone
weights and ‘so forth’.
IV.
Gold 481.95 g; silver 2423.8 g.
V.
(Rowe 1940, 26, pl. 29:32–44)
VI.
University of Pennsylvania
Beth Shean B:
I.
Rowe’s Ramses III = c.11th century (Mazar 1993, 219–20)
II.
Silver ingots and jewellery. Shapes include but are not limited to ‘cake’ ingots, jewellery
(especially lunate earrings), dumps and possibly one ‘rolled tongue’ ingot. The ingots were
once wrapped in cloth but there is no published information about the number of ‘units’ or
bundles into which they may have been divided.
41
Stratigraphy of Area A has not yet been fully developed.
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III.
IV.
V.
VI.
Stratum V, ‘Southern foundation deposit’ in Southern Temple Room 1029. Found in a
‘pot . . . from the east side of the centre column base on the south side of the hall’. Associated
materials are listed under Beth Shean A.
Ingots 2338.83 g; jewellery 95.82 g; total 2434.65 g.
(Rowe 1940, 19, 26, pl. 29:12–31, pl. 66a:3)
University of Pennsylvania
Beth Shean C:
I.
Rowe’s Late Seti I = c.12th–11th centuries (Mazar 1993, 217)
II.
A ‘solid mass of silver ingots, earrings, pieces of wire, a gold armlet’.
III.
Stratum VI, below the south wall of North Temple Room 1095.
IV.
The mass which bore ‘traces of a cloth in which it had originally been kept’ weighed about
1332 g.
V.
(Rowe 1940, 19, p1. 34:17, 21 and p1. 67a: 1–3)
VI.
University of Pennsylvania
Beth Shean D:
I.
12th century
II.
Two linen-wrapped bundles42 as well as another ‘group’ of silver ingots and Hacksilber,
including deliberately broken pieces of jewellery (earrings, ‘bracelets’, toggle pin).
III.
S4, found in a room of the Egyptian garrison. Not contained in ceramic vessels. Associated
finds include two gold lunate earrings.
IV.
Forthcoming
V.
(Mazar 1997, 71–2)
VI.
Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University
Dor
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
11th–10th centuries
One large ceramic ‘jar’ filled with 17 linen-wrapped bundles of Hacksilber and silver ingots
(relatively lacking in jewellery).
Area D2 contained in a clay ‘jug’ inserted into a pit under a floor in the southern harbour
complex. ‘Close to the foundations’ and ‘between two large buildings’. Clay bullae were
found inside the container alongside the bundles.
About 8.5 kg.
(Stern 1998, 46–51; 2001, 19–26)
Israel Museum
Ein Gedi
I.
630–586
II.
62 pieces of silver, mostly ‘cake’ ingots and their fragments; no jewellery.
III.
Stratum V, found in a cooking-pot covered by an oil lamp buried beneath a floor. A bronze
balance pan and three dome-shaped stone weights were found on floor covering the hoard.
IV.
1078 g.
V.
(Mazar 1963, 104; 1993, 400, 402; Gitin and Golani 2001, 38)
VI.
Israel Museum
Ein Hofez
I.
Tentatively dated to the 10th–9th centuries
II.
Primarily Hacksilber, silver ingots. Among the several items of silver jewellery were lunate
earrings, ‘ladle’-shaped earrings and earrings with the drop-shape attachment, as well as their
fragments.
42
The publication states that two hoards were found ‘wrapped in a scrap of linen’ woven in the Egyptian style.
Subsequent examination has made it clear that at least two bundles had been wrapped in cloth and possibly the
third ‘group’ of objects as well. A fuller publication is forthcoming.
OXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY
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CHRISTINE M. THOMPSON
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
Contained in three juglets, details of context not presently available.
Over 1200 g.
(Alexander, Y. 2000, personal communication)43
Israel Antiquities Authority
Eshtemoa
I.
11th–9th centuries
II.
Hacksilber, silver ingots and jewellery.
III.
Five jugs, on three of which was written hamesh or ‘five’, buried in a hole in bedrock under
the floor of a room adjoining the north wall of a synagogue complex.
IV.
About 26 kg.
V.
(Yeivin 1971, 1972, 1987, 1990, 1993, 426; Kletter and Brand 1998)
VI.
Israel Museum and Antiquities Authority of Judaea and Samaria
Gezer44 A:
I.
‘Fourth Semitic Period’ = 9th–early 6th centuries
II.
Hoard of silver bracelets consisting of 18 fragments.
III.
Found in ‘rather disturbed’ stratification with a ‘small hair pin’, millstones, a stone dish, and
fragments of ‘bronze’ pins.
IV.
Not available.
V.
(Macalister 1912, 98–100, fig. 285)
VI.
Istanbul? (Not under the care of Israel Antiquities Authority or Antiquities Authority of Judaea
and Samaria)
Gezer B:
I.
‘XIIth Dynasty of the Hyksos’45
II.
Hoard of ornaments containing entirely silver objects except two steatite scarabs. The silver
objects were primarily fragments corroded into small ‘lumps’, perhaps bundles. Among the
objects were hairpins, beads, small rings in the form of ‘loops’, earrings, a pendant crescent,
‘bangles’, and possibly a small chain.
III.
IV 10, deposited in the bottom of a broken vase of ‘light drab ware ornamented with faint
combing’.
IV.
Not available.
V.
(Macalister 1912, 102–3, fig. 288)
VI.
Istanbul? (Not under the care of Israel Antiquities Authority or the Antiquities Authority of
Judaea and Samaria)
Gezer C:
I.
‘Early Israelite’ period = 10th century
II.
Hacksilber and coiled rings interpreted as a ‘silversmith’s’ hoard.
III.
Pottery vessel.
IV.
Not available.
V.
(Macalister 1912, 262–3, fig. 408)
VI.
Istanbul? (Not under the care of Israel Antiquities Authority or Antiquities Authority of Judaea
and Samaria)
43
44
45
Golani and Sass have published preliminary information about the hoards from Ein Hofez. They believed that it
included silver, electrum, and gold jewellery along with gold and silver ingots (1998, 77, n. 7). I examined the
hoard and found no gold objects. Some objects had a golden hue that suggested they were made a silver-gold
alloy, but compositional analyses are not yet available.
Dating and interpretations are problematic if not completely unreliable; possible Iron Age hoards are cited.
This hoard was apparently dated by the scarabs, but as the bullae in Dor Hoard demonstrate, these could have
been in use for centuries (Stern 2001, 23). N.B. Scarab 2 in the Gezer Hoard ‘characteristic of the XIIth Dynasty’
bears interlocking spirals like those on the bullae from the Dor Hoard.
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SEALED SILVER IN IRON AGE CISJORDAN AND THE ‘INVENTION’ OF COINAGE
Megiddo A:46
I.
Mid-to-end of the 11th century
II.
Hacksilber, jewellery fragments and bronze arrowhead. Shapes include portioned dumps,
chocolate bar ingots, fragmented sheet silver, lunate earrings, at least one bezel or token and a
coiled ring.
III.
Stratum VIA, divided into three cloth-wrapped bundles.
IV.
Not available.
V.
(Loud 1948, p1. 229:7–9)
VI.
University of Chicago
Megiddo B:
I.
Mid-to-end of the 11th century
II.
‘Bronze’ and silver fragments.
III.
Stratum VIA, traces of cloth found with a group of gold and ‘bronze’ beads adhering to
fragments of bronze and silver and with a gold earring adhering to a silver dish.
IV.
Not available.
V.
(Loud 1948, p1. 228:6)
VI.
University of Chicago
Shechem:
I.
Probably Iron Age (Golani and Sass 1998) or Late Bronze Age (Kee and Toombs 1957, fig.
13)
II.
Approximately 200 pieces of Hacksilber and one of bronze, included at least six lunate
earrings and 10 small rings of silver,
III.
Disturbed context, found in a small jar.
IV.
Total weight not recorded, 102 pieces at the Semitic Museum weighed 45.16 g.
V.
(Kee and Toombs 1957, 105, fig. 13; Wright 1965, 8; Balmuth 1967, 28, fig. 1; Golani and
Sass 1998, 77; Balmuth and Thompson 2000)
VI.
102 pieces at the Semitic Museum of Harvard University; location of the remainder uncertain
Tell Keisan
I.
Second half of the 11th century
II.
Silver and ‘bronze’47 fragments; includes lunate earrings and pieces of ‘bracelets’, sheet silver
and a bezel/token.
III.
Loc. 635, level 9a between silo 6115 and the room of jars (Loc. 610). Contained in a
bichrome flask in a brick wall, either in a hiding place or a niche. Contained four linenwrapped bundles sealed with unbaked clay bullae and fragments of objects from other
disintegrated bundles.
IV.
The total weight of the hoard was 354 g. The weights of the bundles were 24.5 g, 100 g, 32 g,
and 25 g. Loose objects from disintegrated bundles weighed 172.5 g.
V.
(Nodet 1980, 325, p1. 132)
VI.
Israel Antiquities Authority
Tel Miqne-Ekron A:
I.
7th century
II.
Hoard 1 or 1985 Hoard; Hacksilber, including broken or damaged silver jewellery and 256
small beads.
46
47
The bronze and cloth of Stratum VII = Early Iron I (Loud 1948, pl. 228:2–3); the ‘bronze’ may be corroded silver
as it was at Tell Keisan (below).
Upon sampling objects from the Keisan hoard for laboratory analyses it became clear that those objects initially
identified as bronze on the basis of superficial green-blue corrosion products were actually silver. That the
corrosion products completely covered the surfaces of some of the objects does not necessarily indicate a high
copper content in the alloy.
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CHRISTINE M. THOMPSON
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
Stratum IB. Contained in a ‘small cooking pot jug’ deliberately hidden beneath a floor in one
of the auxiliary buildings of Temple Complex 650 in Field IV, the elite zone.
24.5 g silver; the hoard’s total weight was 33.5 g.
(Golani and Sass 1998, fig. 4; Gitin and Golani 2001, 27–48, pl. 2.2)
W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, Jerusalem
Tel Miqne-Ekron B:
I.
7th century
II.
Hoard 2 or 1988 Hoard; Hacksilber including broken or damaged silver jewellery, a ‘rolled
tongue’ ingot, and two ‘fused lumps of cut silver pieces’. Traces of textile remained on some
pieces indicating that some or all of them were once wrapped in cloth. Seven pieces ‘were not
silver or were a composite of silver and another material’.
III.
Stratum IB. Found in a pile on a floor in an auxiliary building of Temple Complex Field 650
in IV, the elite zone.
IV.
259.4 g silver; the hoard’s total weight was 263.4 g.
V.
(Golani and Sass 1998, figs. 5, 6, 8; Gitin and Golani 2001, 27–48, pls. 2.3 and 2.4)
VI.
W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, Jerusalem
Tel Miqne-Ekron C:
I.
7th century
II.
Hoard 3 (one of the hoards excavated in 1992); 89 pieces of Hacksilber and silver ingots
including several ‘rolled tongue’ ingots and one gold droplet. This hoard contained no
jewellery.
III.
Stratum IB. Found in a small jug found within a larger jug buried beneath a floor of Temple
Complex 650 in Field IV, the elite zone.
IV.
954 g silver; the hoard’s total weight was 956 g.
V.
(Gitin and Golani 2001, 27– 48, pls. 2.5 and 2.6)
VI.
W.F. Albright School of Archaeological Research, Jerusalem
Tel Miqne-Ekron D:
I.
7th century
II.
Hoard 4 (‘1992 Hoard’ in Golani and Sass 1998); 30 mostly complete pieces of silver and
non-silver jewellery that were worn and dented but did not show the usual signs of deliberate
mutilation and three pieces of Hacksilber. Silver jewellery forms include coiled rings, basketpendant earrings, finger-rings and a medallion.
III.
Stratum IB. Hidden in the hole of a ‘hewn-down and reused perforated’ stone weight of an
olive press, possibly a wall-safe in Field I, in the north-eastern acropolis of the upper city.
IV.
89.7 g silver; the hoard’s total weight was 102.2 g.
V.
(Golani and Sass 1998, figs. 7 and 9; Gitin and Golani 2001, 27–48, pls. 2.7 and 2.8)
VI.
W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, Jerusalem
Tel Miqne-Ekron E:
I.
7th century
II.
Hoard 5 or 1993 Hoard; apparently a foundation deposit. Most of the silver is in the form of
cut, damaged and worn silver jewellery deposited alongside fragments of other silver objects
and non-silver jewellery (primarily beads and scarabs).
III.
Found in a small jug immediately beneath a Strata IC–IB wall in Field III, the industrial zone.
IV.
73 g silver; the hoard’s total weight was 101.5 g.
V.
(Gitin and Golani 2001, 27– 48, pl. 2.9)
VI.
W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, Jerusalem
Tel Miqne-Ekron F:
I.
7th century
II.
Hoard 6 or 1995 Hoard; silver mostly in the form of lunate earrings (11 total) and their
fragments and one piece of ‘non-silver jewellery’.
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SEALED SILVER IN IRON AGE CISJORDAN AND THE ‘INVENTION’ OF COINAGE
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
Stratum IB. Found covered by an overturned bowl on the threshold of one of the side-rooms
of the Sanctuary in Temple Complex 650 in Field IV, the elite zone. The bowl may have
fallen off a shelf when the building was destroyed.
19 g silver; the hoard’s total weight was 20 g.
(Gitin and Golani 2001, 27– 48, pl. 2.10)
W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, Jerusalem
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