4-14 Jewish Shekels and other Coins of Ancient Judea. 



a special purpose. Of such methods of changing the value of 

 a particular letter we are not without examples. For instance, 

 when, as on the most ancient incused coins of Sybaris, the 

 Greek sigma, is written flatwise, thus m, it has been thought 

 probable that, in that position, it represented the broad SH 

 sound of the Hebrew and Phoenician character from which 

 it was derived; while, in its subsequent upright form, it 

 represented the sharper sound of the clear Greek sigma (X). 

 Again, initial and terminal letters in the more ancient 

 systems of writing had generally a special value. The Greek 

 eta, for instance, at the beginning of a word, represented an 

 aspirate, as in HXATON, while, in the middle of a word, it 

 was used as a long e. It was the custom, in Oriental systems 

 of writing (in which, as it is well known, the vowels in the 

 body of words were omitted), to express them when at the 

 beginning or end of a word ; of which many curious examples 

 might be cited in the Egyptian system. I have thus been 

 induced to consider the character in question rather in the 

 light of an aspirated aleph, being the old character changed 

 in its position, like the Greek sigma, to give it the sharper 

 value. Having taken that view in my paper of last month, I 

 now supply another notation of the interpretation in which the 

 more commonly accepted value of the character is given, which, 

 being read from right to left, gives Jeroushalem Hakedoushah 

 (Jerusalem the holy).* 



1% 11 10 p a 7 6 -s • u 3 2 4 



n^ ^ ^r ^ ft * }* ^ V,^ ' 



HwHS UO DwKwH M(e>L(a)HS UO Rfc I 



With regard to the types or devices of this interesting series 

 of coins (namely, the first shekels attributed to the high priest 

 Yaddous), a correspondent, wishing for information, asks if 

 they are all alike. On the contrary, there are several varieties, 

 and numismatists are not agreed as to the precise import of 

 some of the devices used, not even of the two most common 

 ones which I selected as the most interesting. The vase which 

 I have called the Omer of manna — an interpretation which the 



* In comparing tins inscription with that of the article in the December 

 Number, the render must correct the errors of the printer in setting up the modern 

 Hebrew letters appended to that inscription. At No. 1 there should be ^ (yod) ; 

 at, Nob. 4 and 5, and also at Nos. 17 and 18, there should be 1 (vau). Similar 

 errors occur in page 841, line thirty, whore D (caph) and "1 (reach) should 

 replace 2 (both) and ^ (dalelh). 





