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The Juda Iscariot's Price.
Lot # 152
Greek Asia. Phoenicia, Tyre. AR Tetradrachm-Shekel, Lifetime of Christ issue, dated CY 150 (24-25 AD). Obv. Head of Melkart right, wearing laurel wreath. Rev. TYPOY IEPAΣ KAI AΣYΛOY. Eagle standing left [on prow], palm frond in background; to left, PN (date) above club; to right, KP above monogram; Phoenician l letter between legs. Cf. DCA-Tyre 518; HGC 10, 357; cf. Hendin 1618. AR. 14.21 g. 27.00 mm. R. Rare and intriguing. Bold date. Prettily toned, with iridescent hues. Good VF. Matthew 26:15-16, 27:3, and 27:5-6 describe how thirty silver coins were promised to Judas Iscariot to betray Jesus and how, after his deed had been done, Judas sank into remorse and cast aside the coins he had received as his bounty. It is generally accepted that the coins paid to Judas were shekels from the mint of Tyre. At this time in history Tyre was the only producer of high-purity silver coins in the region, and it is unlikely that any other coin – including Roman tetradrachms, which were of debased silver – would have served the purpose described. Indeed, at this time Jews paid their annual half-shekel contribution to the Jerusalem Temple in its only accepted form – silver coins of Tyre. Our exampe is dated to the 150th year of the city of Tyre, equating A.D. 24 or 25; as such, it could have circulated in Jerusalem in the year of the Crucifixion. "The minting place of the Tyre sheqels has been a subject of discussion since Meshorer's revolutionary concept, published in 1982, that Herod the Great and the authorities at the Jerusalem Temple feared a cessation of minting in Tyre, and transferred this issue to a mint in Jerusalem in around 19/18 BCE. At this time, Meshorer observed, the letters KAP, shortened to KP after the first few years, appeared on virtually all of the Tyre sheqels, where various initials or monograms had appeared on earlier coins. He suggested the letters KP abbreviated Kratos Romaion (power of the Romans). One of Meshorer's principal arguments was based on the decline in style of Tyre sheqels of the later type. He believed this degradation was due to the lack of skill of Jewish mintmasters, not to mention their disinterest in the pagan designs that they treated with disdain. He referred to them as barbaric and clunky, and suggested their smaller, thicker shape hinted they were direct predecessors to the thick sheqels struck by the Jews during the Jewish War." (Guide to Biblical coins, David Hendin, p479, 2010 AD). Despite Meshorer, see "Tyrian Shekels: the myth of the Jerusalem Mint" by Brooks Levy in SAN - Journal of the Society for Ancient Numismatics (Vol.XIX, No.2, 1995), pp.33-35, for further explanation of this attribution and its problems.