The history of silver coins during the Byzantine Time and in The Biblical World

The history of coinage is really ancient. The coin-collectors say that this very history of silver coins is close to the history of different ancient civilizations. Among these civilizations are The Roman Empire, The Egypt, the Byzantine Empire, the Persian period etc.

The rise of the Byzantine Empire was located in the East. It was closely connected with the name of its emperor Constantine the Great (307-337 A.D.). The historians contend that it heralded the beginning of the Medieval age. The most powerful political force was the Christian Church. In fact the church also had major privileges in the financial structure of the Empire. The political structure in whole was similar to The Roman Empire. To support all the ruler system there were organized many coinage manufacturing.

The standard Byzantine silver coin was issued for nearly 1000 years. They had a remarkably consistent weight and fineness of silver. Superb quality Byzantine silver coins can be find even nowadays. You can see them not just in the museums. It’s still possible to purchase them by a special price (at about $350 each). Many coin collectors have these “pieces of history” in their collections. It’s understandable, that it’s not very high price for the thing of this fascinating period of history.

The second, and possible, one of the most interesting period in silver coinage is the Era of The Biblical World.

The Judeo-Christian religions are fully represented by their silver coins. This very period was during the Persian period (about 400-333 B.C.). Ancient Judean coinage was intensively developed at this time. One of the so-called developer was Hashmoneans. He also had great knowledge in using silver as a material for coins. Coinage was struck during the Roman period and especially including important silver coins during the two Jewish revolts against Rome. To commemorate the subjugation of Judea the Romans struck these silver coins. It was a sort of the trophy. Many other cities and kings also mentioned in the Bible appear on coins.

There were many famous events in the New Testament. And among them tribute penny or silver denarius of Tiberius (14-37 A.D.) and the thirty pieces of silver or silver tetradrachm of Tyre. The coins are also narrate about the cities visited by St. Paul in his travels throughout the ancient world. As were said, you can easily to own coins which circulated at the time of Christ and the Apostles. And the prices are not high.