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(Image credit: Eliyahu Yanai, City of David)
Archaeologists in Jerusalem have actually found an uncommon, mini gold coin that portrays the Egyptian queen Berenice II and dates to the reign of her spouse, the 3rd ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt.
The Ptolemies were a Macedonian royal dynasty established by among Alexander the Great’s generals, Ptolemy I Soter, throughout Egypt’s Hellenistic duration( circa 323 to 30 B.C. ).
The coin was most likely minted in Alexandria 2,270 years back, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), that made the discover in Jerusalem. It might have belonged to a collection of coins that were talented to soldiers returning from the Third Syrian War (246 to 241 B.C.a dispute in between the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt and the Seleucid Empire of Syria.”It’s a gorgeous coin,” Robert Koolhead of numismatics at the IAA, stated in a video explaining the discovery. “We [have] only found 17 of these coins over the past 100 years.”
Of those coins, this one is the very first to have actually been discovered outside Egypt and in arranged excavations. It was discovered in the City of David, a historical site in East Jerusalem that is thought about the city’s ancient settlement core.
Rivka Langler, who has actually been excavating a location of the website called the Givati Parking Lot for 2 years, found the coin while sorting through soil. “I was sifting the excavation soil when suddenly I saw something shiny,” Langler stated in a declaration “At first, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but within seconds I was running excitedly through the excavation site.”
Related: ‘Extremely uncommon’ 2,500-year-old damaged silver coin discovered near Jerusalem
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One side of the coin reveals a picture of Queen Berenice II using a tiara, a veil and a locket. The opposite, which illustrates a cornucopia and 2 stars, bears the ancient Greek engraving “Basileisses,” which implies “of the Queen.”
Berenice II was the partner and accompaniment of Ptolemy III, who ruled in Egypt in between 246 and 221 B.C.– however the engraving on the coin recommends Berenice might have been a ruler in her own right, according to the declaration.
“She was a queen of an area which was called Kirinyaka, today in eastern Libya,” Kool discussed in the video. “When she married her cousin Ptolemy III, this area became part of this large and very, very important and rich Hellenistic kingdom. When her husband, Ptolemy III, invaded Syria, she took over as the regent of Egypt.”
The mini gold coin might have been offered to a soldier returning from the Third Syrian War, scientists believe. (Image credit: Eliyahu Yanai, City of David )Queens of the Ptolemaic dynasty sometimes appeared on coins, with one well-known example being Cleopatra VII (understood merely as Cleopatra), the child of Ptolemy XII. The brand-new discovery still stands out as one of the earliest such coins and recommends Queen Berenice II had excellent political power or impact, according to the declaration.
It’s uncertain how the coin wound up in Jerusalem, however its discovery there shows that the ancient city was quickly recuperating from the damage of the First Temple in 586 or 587 B.C., when the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II laid siege to Jerusalem.
“Until now, the prevailing scholarly view was that [after the siege] Jerusalem was a small, marginal, resource-poor town,” Yiftah Shalevan archaeologist with the IAA who co-led the excavations, stated in the declaration.
“Jerusalem seems to have begun recovering already during the Persian period [586 to 333 B.C.] and grew stronger under Ptolemaic rule,” Shalev stated. “Jerusalem in the centuries after the destruction of the First Temple was not desolate and isolated, but rather a city in the process of renewal, reestablishing ties with the dominant political, economic, and cultural centers of the period.”
The elite in Jerusalem most likely shared ties with the judgment elite in Egypt, Yuval Gadota teacher of archaeology at Tel Aviv University and the excavation director, stated in the video. “The golden coin we found here … tells us that Jerusalem was an important city,” he stated.
Sascha is a U.K.-based personnel author at Live Science. She holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Southampton in England and a master’s degree in science interaction from Imperial College London. Her work has actually appeared in The Guardian and the health site Zoe. Composing, she delights in playing tennis, bread-making and searching pre-owned stores for surprise gems.
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