Israelis catch the first use of silver as currency – 02/27/2023 – Darwin and God

Data obtained by researchers at the University of Haifa and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem help to paint a somewhat fuller picture of how practices that we might call “protomonetary” — the use of precious metals, such as silver, in commercial exchanges — began to spread throughout the ancient world. Interestingly, the new information comes from Bronze Age cities well known to Bible readers: Shiloh, Megiddo, and Gezer.

details are in a work recently published in the specialized journal Journal of Archaeological Science. In the study, by Tzilla Eshel, Ayelet Gilboa and other researchers, the team looked at sites where silver fragments were stored during the late Middle Bronze Age and early Late Bronze Age (i.e., roughly between 1700 BC and 1400 BC).

Prior to this time, proto-monetary use of silver only existed in a few regions of the ancient world, such as Mesopotamia and Syria. From the end of the Middle Bronze Age, the practice seems to have spread, with the use of unworked pieces of metal or recycled from jewelry and other objects to facilitate and standardize commercial exchanges.

By means of impurities in silver — such as the presence of a certain amount of lead, for example — specialists were able to show that a good part of the unworked metal, also designated with the Germanic term “hacksilber”, was coming from Anatolia (now Turkey). This is because there were no native sources of silver in ancient Canaan (the area today corresponds to Israel and the Palestinian territories).

The work also showed trade connections with the island of Cyprus and the Mycenaean Greeks (the first phase of Hellenic civilization). The minted coins themselves would not appear until several centuries later, as would the Israelite people, who had not yet established themselves in the region as a distinct ethnic group.

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