Early Coins Found at Khirbet Qeiyafa
According to a new report, the excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa* have unearthed dozens of ancient coins, including the earliest locally-minted coins ever found in Israel. The silver coins, which were discussed by Hebrew University doctoral student Yoav Farhi at the 37th Israel Archaeological Congress held last week at Bar-Ilan University, date back to the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E., when the Achaemenid empire of Persia ruled over the province of Judah (or Yehud). Some coins also date to the early Hellenistic period and the time of Alexander the Great.
According to Farhi, older Greek coins imported from abroad had previously been found at sites like Jerusalem and Shechem, but the coins discovered at Qeiyafa are Israel’s earliest locally-minted coins. “These are the first coins ever minted in the land [of Israel],” said Farhi.
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