NEW BOOK: JESELSOHN COLLECTION, VOLUME I

THE JESELSOHN COLLECTION OF COINS OF THE HOLY LAND
Volume I - PERSIAN AND EARLY HELLENISTIC COINAGE

The book contains a catalogue of the largest collection of early coinages minted locally in the southern Levant during the fifth-fourth centuries BCE. The two centuries of Achaemenid dominion in the Near East, from 538 until 332 BCE, constitute a crucial period in the history of the southern part of the Fifth Persian Satrapy, also known as Beyond the River (‘Abar Naharâ). This period is marked by a profound transformation in the economic, political and cultural life of the region.

From the mid-fifth century BCE we witness a transition in the means of payment from the use of weighed metal (mostly silver) to that of foreign coinage, and, subsequently, to local issues. The issuing of local coins by civic minting authorities should be seen as a part of a longer process of monetization by which the use of precious metals in various shapes for economic transactions was transformed into the use of coins for such transactions in the southern Levant.

The current volume, covers the Persian and Early Hellenistic Coinage, i.e. from the Persian (Achaemenid) and early Hellenistic (Ptolemaic and Seleucid) periods, roughly 450 to 250 BCE, as well as three Hacksilber and jewelry hoards and varia. This includes the coinage of Philistia, Samaria, Judah and possibly Dor and Edom.

The Jeselsohn Collection (also known as the David and Jemima Jeselsohn Collection and hereafter JC) of coins of the Holy Land requires geographic and chronological definition. Geographically the collection covers the area from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Arabian Desert in the east, and from the Red Sea and the Sinai Peninsula in the south to a line in the north stretching from Akko in the west to the slopes of Mount Hermon and on to the Arabian Desert south of Damascus in the east.

Chronologically the collection covers the period starting from the beginning of coin minting in this area in the second half of the fifth century BCE, slightly after 450 BCE, until the end of the thirteenth century, dated for the sake of convenience to 1291 CE when the city of Akko/Acre, the last stronghold of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, was captured by the Mamluks.

Thereafter, during the Mamluk and Ottoman periods, coins were no longer minted in the area. The British Mandate authorities minted coins for Palestine in Britain with the inscription Palestine – Eretz Israel from 1927 to 1946 CE. Minting of coins in the area began again only when the State of Israel was founded in 1948 CE. One can therefore say that the JC covers all the minting activity in the area over 2,400 years, from about 450 BCE to 1948 CE.

This long period of 2,400 years is divided into four consecutive parts, to be presented in four volumes as follows:

Volume I, the current volume, covers the Persian and Early Hellenistic Coinage, i.e. from the Persian (Achaemenid) and early Hellenistic (Ptolemaic and Seleucid) periods, roughly 450 to 250 BCE, as well as three Hacksilber and jewelry hoards and varia. This includes the coinage of Philistia, Samaria, Judah and possibly Dor and Edom.

Volume II will cover the city coins of the Hellenistic and Roman periods, i.e. from Alexander the Great's conquest of the area in 333 BCE to the cessation of city-coin minting under the Roman Emperor Gallienus from 258 to 268 CE.

Volume III will be dedicated to Jewish coinage. It will cover the period from the Hasmoneans – John Hyrcanus I (134–104 BCE) – to the end of the Bar Kokhba War in 136 CE.

Volume IV, which was the first to be published in 2022, covers the coinage of Islamic rulers, from the conquest of the area by the Arabs in 634 CE until the end of the minting activity in this area around the end of the thirteenth century CE. It also covers the coins of the Crusaders, between 1099 and 1291 CE.

For more information, see:
The Jeselsohn Collection of Coins of the Holy Land Volume I. Hacksilber, Persian and Early Hellenistic Coinage (https://www.academia.edu/119162809/The_Jeselsohn_Collection_of_Coins_
of_the_Holy_Land_Volume_I_Hacksilber_Persian_and_Early_Hellenistic_Coinage)

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