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Com and Currency in [No. 9, new series. 



might be built, they forged coins bearing effigies of Abraham and 

 Sarah on one side and of Isaac and Rebecca on the other. These 

 articles do not throw much light on the matter. It would seem 

 that whoever issued the shekels current in Canaan, both before 

 and after the Hebrew occupation of the country, they did not bear 

 any certain external evidence of containing the due amount of 

 silver. The being issued from one well known and trustworthy 

 mint might have conferred, but they evidently did not possess it. 

 The very word shekel is derived from shakal, he weighed, Abraham 

 weighed the " four-hundred shekels of silver current with the 

 Merchant." Even at so late a period as that of the captivity Je- 

 remiah " weighs" seventeen shekels of silver, (Jer. xxxii. 9 — cir. 

 590 B. C.) 



As to the value of the shekel ; Josephus tells us that it was 

 equal to four Attic drachma — 'Arnicaf Several Spaxpas ieooapa.%. 

 This would make it half an ounce of silver. It is generally esti- 

 mated at 25. 6d. which is a little less than the mint price of half 

 an ounce of silver. Bp. Cumberland computes the gerah, (one- 

 twentieth of the shekel,) to be equal to the Attic obolus — eleven 

 grains of silver. He estimates the shekel at a little more than 

 25. 4%d. 



From 1st Kings x. 22, we learn that Ophir supplied the Jews in 

 Solomon's time with silver as well as gold. 



In Greece, silver currency was the oldest. 'Apvvpos (silver) is 

 used for " money" in general — as the Hebrew ceseph, the French 

 argent — the Saxon or Lowland Scotch siller. All Greek words re- 

 lating to money (e. g. usurer, mint J are derived from aprjvpos. 



According to Herodotus (I. 94) the Lydians were the first to 

 coin silver as well as gold ; but the evidence of the most ancient 

 authors is in favour of the iEginetans ; and the date of the first 

 coinage of silver in iEgina was B. C, 869. The oldest ^Eginetan 

 coins are very rude and thick, and have an indented mark, as if 

 from the blow in striking. Greek coins of the age of Pericles 

 and Xenophon are still thick, but much less clumsy than their 

 predecessors. Later specimens are broad and thin. In fact, there 

 are three well-marked classes of Grecian silver coins. 



The material of all is very fine, more especially of those issued 



