Shekel

The shekel was an ancient Near Eastern unit of weight, used above all for weighing silver, that later became the name of a coin. The word derives from a Semitic root meaning "to weigh", and the unit appears in Mesopotamian records from the third millennium BCE onward, long before the invention of coinage.

Shekel weights varied by region and period, typically falling somewhere between about 8 and 17 grams. The name passed from weighed silver to Phoenician and Jewish coins, and in the twentieth century it was revived for the currency of the State of Israel.

In Mesopotamia the shekel formed part of a sexagesimal weight system: 60 shekels made one mina, and 60 minas one talent. Silver measured in shekels served as a standard of value and a means of payment. Law collections such as that of Hammurabi of Babylon set fines, fees and wages in shekels of silver, and temple and palace records priced grain, land and labour in the same terms. In this sense the shekel acted as a unit of account even where much exchange still took the form of barter or credit.

Silver usually changed hands as cut or broken pieces, rings and ingots, weighed on scales at each transaction. Archaeologists have found hoards of such fragments across the Levant, as well as sets of stone weights. In the kingdom of Judah in the late Iron Age, small inscribed limestone weights were used for multiples and fractions of a shekel of roughly 11 grams.

The Hebrew Bible mentions shekels many times, usually as quantities of silver rather than coins. Examples include a land purchase priced at four hundred shekels of silver and an annual contribution of a half-shekel for the sanctuary. The texts also refer to a "shekel of the sanctuary", suggesting that more than one standard was recognised. Because most of these passages describe periods before coinage reached the region, they are generally read as referring to weighed metal, and the exact weights intended cannot be fixed with confidence.

Coinage was invented in western Anatolia, with early issues such as the Lydian stater, and spread to the Levant during the Persian period, when the Achaemenid empire ruled the region. The Phoenician cities struck silver coins on shekel standards, including the coinage of Sidon and the issues of Tyre. Small silver coins inscribed "Yehud" were also minted in the Persian province of Judah. After Alexander's conquests the region used Greek-style money, including drachmas and tetradrachms and later the Seleucid coinage.

The silver Tyrian shekel, minted from the later second century BCE and weighing about 14 grams, became especially important. Its high silver content made it the coin accepted for the Temple tax in Jerusalem in the late Second Temple period. Smaller bronze coins, including the lepton, served for daily purchases, while the Roman denarius circulated after Roman rule was established.

The first coins actually called shekels by their issuers were struck during the Jewish revolt against Rome of 66 to 70 CE. The rebel authorities in Jerusalem issued silver shekels and half-shekels on the Tyrian weight standard, inscribed in the old Hebrew script with "Shekel of Israel" and "Jerusalem the Holy". They show a chalice on one side and a stem with three pomegranates on the other, and are dated by year of the revolt from year one to year five. Production ended with the Roman capture of Jerusalem in 70 CE. These coins are among the most studied in ancient numismatics.

The State of Israel revived the name in 1980, when the shekel replaced the Israeli pound at a rate of ten to one. Severe inflation in the early 1980s, which approached hyperinflation, eroded it quickly, and in 1985 it was replaced by the Israeli new shekel at a rate of one thousand to one. The new shekel, divided into 100 agorot, remains Israel's currency and is issued by the Bank of Israel.

• British Museum collection
• American Numismatic Society
• Bank of Israel