2023 SHEKEL PRIZE ANNOUNCED

 
The Shekel Prize medal was designed by Victor Huster.

Mel Wacks, chair of the American Israel Numismatic Association's Shekel Prize Committee, has announced that the unanimous choice of the jurors for the 2023 Shekel Prize are Dr. Yitzhak Magen, Dr. Gabriela Bijovsky and Yoav Tzionit for the book Mount Gerizim Excavations - The Coins. The Shekel Prize is awarded annually to the best book published on the topic of ancient Judaean coins, coins of the Holy Land or Judaic numismatics. The winning volume discusses the History of the Samaritans on Mount Gerizim and includes the corpus of coins discovered on the site dating between the Persian and Byzantine Periods.

The first section, written by Dr. Yizhak Magen, Head Archaeological Officer for the Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria, details the history of the Samaritans and Mt. Gerizim from the destruction of Samaria at the end of the eighth century BCE until the Byzantine period. The author discusses coins discovered at Mt. Gerizim that have helped put to rest more than a century of historical and archeological debate over research issues regarding the Samaritans. The second section, by Dr. Gabriela Bijovsky, analyzes the thousands of coins discovered at Mt. Gerizim dating from the Persian period to the Byzantine period. The author deals with several aspects of the Mt. Gerizim coins, among them chronology, typology and the study of mints. The third section was prepared by Yoav Tzionit, Senior Curator for the Archaeology Department of the Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria, and includes the database of the coins from Mt. Gerizim.

Shekel Prize medals will be presented to Dr. Yitzhak Magen, Dr. Gabriela Bijovsky and Yoav Tzionit later this year by Dr. Haim Gitler, one of the jurors and Chief Curator of Archaeology and Curator of Numismatics at The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Mount Gerizim - The Coins can be purchased from the Israel Antiquities Authority (www.antiquities.org.il/), and can be read free at www.academia.edu.

The other candidates for the Shekel Prize were Forging Secrets: Faces and Facts Inside the Nazi Operation Bernhard Scheme edited by Kiel Majewski, Joseph Boling and Daniel Spungen; Who's Who in the Jewish-American Hall of Fame by Mel Wacks; 2022-23 Guide Book Coins, Banknotes and Tokens of Israel by Israel Asher; and Israel Numismatic Research 17/2022 edited by Donald Ariel and Danny Syon.

The American Israel Numismatic Association (www.theshekel.org) publishes The Shekel, The Journal of Israel and Jewish History and Numismatics; memberships are available for $18 (digital) or $40 (printed) by calling 818-225-1348.

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