An extremely rare silver coin dated to the Persian period (6th–5th centuries BCE) was discovered in an Israel Antiquities Authority excavation at a site in the Judean Hills – rare evidence for the earliest use of coins in the country. The excavation, carried out in the course of infrastructure works undertaken by the Netivei Israel National Transport Infrastructure Company, also exposed a building from the First Temple Period, with even earlier evidence for commerce in the form of a sheqel weight.
The rare coin was discovered by Semyon Gendler, the Acting Judean District Archaeologist of the Israel Antiquities Authority. The coin, found intentionally broken, was minted with a square stamp embedded into one face; later, more sophisticated techniques produced coins with protruding rather than sunken stamps.
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