Posted on 03/15/2016 9:40:40 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Laurie Rimon spotted a gleam while on a hike in northern Israel with several friends. It turned out to be a gold coin so unusual, Israeli archaeologists say there is only one other one with the same symbols in the world.
"It's extremely exciting," said Dr. Donald Ariel, an expert with the Israel Antiquities Authority, in comments released by the agency, which says the coin was struck by Roman Emperor Trajan in the year 107. "His gold coins are extremely rare."
One side of the gold disc shows an image of Augustus, the founder of the Roman Empire more than a century earlier. The other has symbols of Roman military legions.
Israeli archaeologists believe Trajan made the coin to honor Augustus. Ariel says at that time gold coins were used only for high finance — and to pay soldiers when silver was unavailable.
But they were worth so much — one gold coin would cover a month of a soldier's salary, according to Ariel — that they were difficult to actually use.
"When the Romans didn't have, for some reason, their regular silver coins to pay soldiers, they would pay three coins every quarter to the soldiers instead of the regular 75 silver coins," Ariel said. "But when the Roman soldier received this coin, what could he do with it? He couldn't buy anything in the market, in town. It was far too much money."
Ariel says soldiers would have to beg the paymaster to change their gold into something spendable.
He speculates that the find — the only coin minted by Trajan found to this day in northern Israel — could give some clues to the Roman army presence in the Galilee area at that time. Jews and Roman rulers fought several wars between A.D. 66 and 135, including before Trajan's rule, when an ancient Jewish temple was destroyed in Jerusalem.
Antiquities officials said Rimon, the hiker who found the coin, told them it was "not easy" to part with her find. "It's not every day one discovers such an amazing object," she told the agency representative who came to inspect and collect it.
The Israel Antiquities Authority plans to give her a certificate of appreciation [that's it?]for turning it over to authorities. They hope to display the coin publicly soon.
Despite what the author claims, I very much doubt if these were minted for paying the rank and file.
It would certain be easier to carry in a paychest than 25 denarii.
25/1 RATIO
interesting
so....today
is silver worth $48
or
is GOLD worth $375
or
ARE BOTH UNDERPRICED
yep.....
WHAT ABOUT THE $19+ trillion debt.....
when does that get factored in...????
WHEN DOES REALITY SET IN..???
Or were the coins not of equal size/weight/content. =)
A certificate of appreciation in exchange for one of the rarest gold coins ever found? Jeez, what a bunch of cheapskates.
Btt
I’d have parted with the coin...for a monthly stipend. Otherwise, it gets sold. This is not something of tremendous religious or historical significance (its not like we had doubts about Roman occupation of ancient Israel at that time), so its just a coin that’s worth a bunch of money. Were it something with David’s or Solomon’s seal on it that’d be another matter.
Isn’t there some type of ratio between the values of gold and silver that is some kind of universal and immutable thing across time and cultures?
Because I heard something like that.
And......that's how Jews got into banking.
> Ariel says soldiers would have to beg the paymaster to change their gold into something spendable.
Roman soldiers who survived their time in service were often rewarded with land, but they were generally paid wine and salt in lieu of part of their pay, and exclusive of billeting and meals.
A great many ancient coin types have survived to the present day; a number of them exist as a single specimen. The coins struck by Aelius Sejanus before he was struck down by order of Tiberius (strangled in his cell,not stabbed as in “I, Claudius”) were restruck or otherwise recycled, such that only about a dozen are known to exist.
The Romans had a better grasp on what money was than many people do today, transitioning into more commonplace bronze coins as the Empire got older and the 50 million or so citizens did more business both with each other and with foreign trade partners. The bronze coins haven’t survived that well in burials, and in very good condition can be quite valuable. On a commodity basis, the gold coins are worth more, but as collectibles not all that much.
The Byzantine gold coins are a little younger and readily available, for those who want to collect. They had a lock on trade between the Black Sea and points n and east, and the Mediterranean and beyond, and their trade reached the British Isles, the Baltic, and until the rise of Islam, India and beyond, so they were hugely rich.
The “widow’s mite” coins, which were struck in copper during the last two centuries BC (and before the Romans conquered the Holy Land) can be found at coin dealers, and they run a great deal more than the value of the copper.
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