Ancient Tyrian Shekel Temple Tax Coin Set in 14K Gold Pendant

Pendant Size: 4 Cm – 1.55” Inches  X 2.7 Cm -1” Inches

Total Weight: 18.5 Grams.

Obverse: Laureate bust of Herakles-Melqart facing right.

Reverse: Eagle standing on prow facing left, palm branch over right wing. Club and PI in left field, KP in right field (Symbolizing the Jerusalem Minted Shekels) Phoenician letter between legs. TYPOY IEPASKAI ASYLOY.

The Jews had no silver coins of their own throughout the period of Tyrian shekels and half shekels. But all of the Judaean taxes were specified in shekels (e.g. the annual Temple Tax for males over 20 was specified as half a shekel). So the Temple Priests had to devise a practical solution. They decided that the Tyrian coins were plentiful and of good silver quality, and so they prescribed that the various Judaean taxes could be accepted only in Tyrian coins ... even though they went against prohibitions of the First Commandment: "You shall have no other gods beside Me. You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above, or on earth below, or in the waters under the earth." Much later, when "Jesus went into the temple of God, and ... overthrew the tables of the moneychangers" (Matthew 21:12), he was attacking those who exchanged Tyrian coins for others, detected counterfeits, etc.

In addition, it was most likely a Shekel of Tyre that Jesus and Peter used to pay the Temple Tax (1/2 shekel each): "Go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money. That take, and give unto them for me and thee" (Matthew 17:27). And finally, these coins probably made up the infamous payment to Judas, when "they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver" (Matthew 26:15).

Scholar Yaakov Meshorer has recently noted that "the Shekels of Tyre on which the inscription KP appears (18 BCE - 66 CE) have in most cases, an inferior style ... and the majority have been found in Israel." He proposes that Tyre must have discontinued these coins in 19 BCE, and Jewish authorities continued minting them in Jerusalem because they were the only coins acceptable for tax payments; the series came to an end at the outbreak of the First Revolt in 66 CE.