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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Nemo, post: 1920226, member: 58462&quot;][ATTACH=full]329753[/ATTACH] Here is a hacksilber ingot, c. 8-6 centuries BC, Israel. 21 x 14 x 5 mm, 8.4 grams. Cut in antiquity from a larger piece. Possibly an overweight Pym or underweight Nezef? </p><p><br /></p><p>Similar ingots were found at Ein Gedi, Israel in a terra cotta cooking pot, hidden in a building destroyed near the end of Iron Age II, early 6th century BC (Avi-Yonah Encylcopedia of the Holy Land, volume 2, p. 374.)</p><p><br /></p><p>The basic weight in use was the shekel, weighing 11.4 g on average. Other weight groups include, but are not limited to, the following:</p><p><br /></p><p>(1) Beqa, a half shekel (Ex. 38:26), 5.7 g. (2) Nezef, averaging 9.12 g. The Judaean equivalent to an Egyptian qedet. (3) Pym, 7.6 g. (1 Samuel 13:21) The Judaean equivalent to the Phoenician shekel.</p><p><br /></p><p>The weight of this ingot is identical to the Mesopotamian shekel. During the 9th to 6th centuries BCE in the Assyrian and Babylonian empires, the common form of expressing prices was in quantities equivalent to one shekel (8.4 g) of silver.</p><p><br /></p><p>In ancient times, livestock were often used in barter. Indicative of this is the fact that the Latin word for money (pecunia) is drawn from pecus, meaning “cattle.” However, livestock (Ge 47:17) and foodstuffs (1Ki 5:10, 11) were obviously not a convenient medium of exchange. </p><p><br /></p><p>Instead, pieces of precious metals began to be used, the weight being checked at the time the transaction was made. </p><p><br /></p><p>Ge 23:16 &quot;Abraham weighed out to E′phron the amount of silver that he had spoken in the hearing of the sons of Heth, four hundred silver shekels current with the merchants.&quot;; Jer 32:10 &quot;Then I wrote in a deed and affixed the seal and took witnesses as I went weighing the money in the scales.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>The usual Hebrew term translated as “money,” keseph, literally means “silver.” (Ge 17:12) There was no coined money in Israel during the First Temple Period (1006-586 BCE). Rather, it consisted of cut pieces of silver and gold, or molded for convenience into bars, rings, bracelets, having a specific weight. - Ge 24:22</p><p><br /></p><p>At Judges 5:19, bâtsa‛ keseph, which is commonly rendered as, “No gain of silver did they take,” literally means to break off or cut off silver.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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