The Origin of Metallic Currency and Weight Standards

by William Ridgeway

Having now dealt with Egypt, and the systems which prevailed in the Assyrio-Babylonian empire, it will be best to treat of the region which lay between them. In both the former countries we found the light shekel or ox-unit in use from the earliest times; and it will also be remembered that at an earlier stage we found that Abraham was able to traverse all the wide country that lay between Mesopotamia and the ancient kingdom of the Nile with his flocks and herds, and that he dwelt in the land of Canaan in close neighbourhood and on friendly terms with the sons of Heth, or Hittites, who were then the possessors of that land; and that furthermore monetary transactions were then carried on by means of certain small ingots of silver, as we see from the purchase of the Cave of Machpelah. These ingots, translated shekels in the English version and called didrachms in the Septuagint, are termed in Hebrew Keseph (‎‏כֶּסֶף‏‎), simply pieces of silver, or silverlings. In the old Hebrew literature values in silver and gold are expressed either in shekels or by a simple numeral with the words “of silver,” “of gold” added (where the latter method is followed the English version supplies pieces or substitutes “a thousand silverlings” for “a thousand of silver” (Isa. vii. 23). The Septuagint renders the shekel by the Greek didrachm). There are several inferences to be drawn from this. It is evident that pieces of silver (and no doubt of gold also) of a certain quality and weight were employed as currency in Palestine, and we may likewise suppose with some probability that these pieces of silver were according to the standard in common use in Egypt and Chaldaea. Again, since we have already shown that gold in the form of rings and other articles for personal adornment was exchanged according to the ox-unit of 130-5 grs., as evidenced by the story of the ring given to Rebekah, it follows that there was but one and the same standard for gold from the Euphrates to the Nile. This is confirmed by the story of the sale of Joseph by his brethren to the company of Ishmaelites “who came from Gilead with their camels bearing spices and balm and myrrh going to carry it down to Egypt”; to these Ishmaelites or Midianites Joseph was sold for twenty pieces of silver[319]. Here we have evidence that the same silver unit was current from Gilead to Egypt. There are various other large sums of silver mentioned both in Genesis and also in the Book of Judges and in Joshua. Thus Abimelech, King of Gerar, is said to have given Abraham a thousand [pieces] of silver[320], whilst the lords of the Philistines persuaded Delilah to beguile Samson into telling her wherein lay his great strength by the promise of eleven hundred [pieces] of silver, which money she afterwards received[321]. Abimelech the son of Jerubbaal (Gideon) was enabled to form his conspiracy by hiring ‘vain and light persons’[322] with the three-score and ten [pieces] of silver taken by his mother’s brother from the house of Baal-berith. Finally, we have a sum of eleven hundred [pieces] of silver which were stolen by that “man of Mount Ephraim whose name was Micah” from his mother, of which his mother took (when he had restored the money) two hundred [shekels] and gave them to the founder, who “made thereof a graven image and a molten image[323].” Now although all these are considerable sums, all exceeding a mina, yet there is no mention whatever made of the latter unit of account in any of these passages. The story of another theft shows that gold as well as silver was reckoned originally only by the shekel and not by the mina. Thus Achan “saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment and two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight[324].” As fifty shekels were a mina, here if anywhere we ought to have found the latter term. From this we infer without hesitation that the shekel was the original unit.

But there is another word besides keseph which is translated piece of money or piece of silver. This is the term qesitah (‎‏קְשׂׅיטָה‏‎) which occurs in three passages of the Old Testament. Thus Jacob bought the parcel of ground where he had spread his tent at the hand of the children of Hamor, Shechem’s father, “for an hundred pieces of money” (Gen. xxxiii. 19); and the same word is used in the parallel passage in Joshua (xxiv. 32) where the children of Israel buried Joseph’s bones in Shechem in the parcel of ground which Jacob bought for an hundred pieces of money. Lastly, Job’s kinsfolk and acquaintances gave him every man a piece of money, and every one a ring of gold (xlii. 11). It has been always a matter of doubt what this piece of money really was. The Septuagint translates qesitah in these three passages by ἑκατὸν ἀμνῶν, ἑκατὸν ἀμνάδων, and ἀμνάδα μίαν, thus in every case regarding it as a lamb. The most ancient interpreters all agree in this, whilst some of the later Rabbis regarded it as signifying a coin stamped with the form of a lamb: one of them says that he found such a coin in Africa[325].

Fig. 25. Weights in the form of Sheep[326].

Long ago Prof. R. S. Poole, speaking of this word, said: “The sanction of the LXX, and the use of weights bearing the forms of lions, bulls, and geese by the Egyptians, Assyrians, and probably Persians, must make us hesitate before we abandon a rendering [lamb] so singularly confirmed by the relation of the Latin pecunia and pecus[327].” The connection between weights and units of currency is especially close at a time when coined money is as yet unknown, and hence when we find weights in the form of sheep coming from Syria, and also recollect that sheep were employed as a regular unit in Palestine for the paying of tribute, and with the light obtained from primitive systems of currency, we may well conclude that the qesitah was an old unit of barter, like the Homeric ox, and as the latter was transformed into a gold unit, so the former was superseded by an equivalent of silver. We read (2 Kings iii. 4) that Mesha, king of Moab (now so famous from the inscription which bears his name), was a sheep-master, and he rendered unto the king of Israel one hundred thousand lambs, and one hundred thousand rams with the wool. When payment in metal came more and more into use silver served as the sub-multiple of gold, just as sheep formed that of the ox, and it is not surprising that in later times when coins were struck by the Phoenicians, as at Salamis in Cyprus and many other places, bearing a sheep or a sheep’s head, there arose some doubt as to whether the qesitah was a sheep, a piece of uncoined silver, or a coin stamped with a sheep. The very fact of the Phoenicians having such a predilection for this type is in itself an indication that the silver coin in its origin represented the value of a sheep. At a later stage, when we come to deal with the early Greek coin types, we shall develop this principle more completely. The mere fact that the sheep on the Phoenician coins is sometimes found accompanying a divinity does not militate against our doctrine, as I shall explain when I deal with the coins of Messana and Thasos.

Fig. 26. Coin of Salamis in Cyprus.

But then comes the question, which was the shekel employed by the Hebrews? It must have been either (1) the ox-unit of 130 grs., used alike for gold and silver in early days both in Egypt and Mesopotamia and Greece, or (2) the double of this, or heavy shekel of 260 grs., used for gold only in parts of Asia Minor, or (3) the Phoenician shekel of 225 grs., used only for silver and electrum along the coast of Asia Minor, and never employed for gold, or (4) the Babylonian or Persic standard of 172 grs., used only for silver. In later times the silver shekel in use amongst the Jews was most undoubtedly the Phoenician shekel, obtained, as we saw above, by dividing the amount of silver equivalent to the double gold shekel into 15 parts. But it may be reasonably doubted whether the silver piece or shekel (called always a didrachmon in the Septuagint) mentioned in Genesis and Judges is the Phoenician shekel. It is used without any distinctive epithet, as if it were the weight par excellence, and is employed for gold as well as silver. But when we turn to certain other passages we find mention made of a shekel called the Shekel of the Sanctuary[328]. This shekel is frequently mentioned, generally in connection with silver, and in reference to such things as the contribution of the half-shekel to the Tabernacle, the redemption of the firstborn, the sacrifice of animals, and the payment of the seer. Yet we find this shekel likewise employed in the estimation of gold, a fact which at once shews that it is neither the Phoenician shekel of 220 grs. nor the Persic of 172 grs., both of which were confined to silver. It must then have been either the ox-unit of 130 grs. or the heavy shekel of 260 grs. As the latter was confined in use to gold it follows that the ox-unit of 130 grs. alone fits the conditions required. If then we can discover what in the case of either silver or gold was the weight of this shekel, we shall have determined it for both metals, for it will hardly be maintained that there was one shekel of the Sanctuary for gold and one of different weight for silver.

Now we read in Exodus (xxxviii. 24 seqq.) that “all the gold that was occupied for the work in all the work of the holy [place], even the gold of the offering, was twenty and nine talents and seven hundred and thirty shekels, after the shekel of the Sanctuary. And the silver of them that were numbered of the congregation was an hundred talents and a thousand seven hundred and three-score and fifteen shekels, after the shekel of the Sanctuary; a bekah for every man, that is, half a shekel after the shekel of the Sanctuary, for every one that went to be numbered from twenty years old and upward, for six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty men. And the brass of the offering was seventy talents and two thousand and four hundred shekels.” From this passage we learn that, whilst the gold and silver were estimated on the shekel of the Sanctuary (or Holy Shekel), the brass was probably reckoned by some other standard.

It is also of importance to note that it is the shekel which is regarded as the unit of the system, for we never hear of a talent or mina of the Sanctuary. From this passage likewise we readily discover that the talent of silver contained 3000 shekels (603,550 ÷ 2 = 301,775 shekels - 1775 = 300,000 ÷ 100 = 3000 shekels).