ISRAEL. – An extremely rare tiny stone weight dating from the period of King David was discovered in excavations in Jerusalem this week. The text of Exodus 38:26 talks about the “beka”, which would be equivalent to “half a shekel, according to the shekel of the sanctuary”.
The piece presented to the press on Wednesday (21), weighs about 5 grams. The Biblical shekel weighed 11.33 grams. The piece in question has the word “beka” inscribed in ancient Hebrew. It was in the middle of the “rubble” removed from excavations in the foundations of the Western Wall.
Although other similar stone pieces were discovered in Israel in the past, none of them had that exact inscription. Archaeologist Eli Shukron, who led the excavations on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, explains that this “beka” was a weight measure from the First Temple period. used by pilgrims to calculate their half-shekel tax before going up the Temple Mount to make sacrifices.
straight from the bible
Since there were no coins yet, the stone was used as a measure to determine the amount of silver to be offered. According to Shukron, the piece discovered now shows that the use of mirrored writing indicates that its craftsman also created official palace “seals.”
“Apparently, the craftsman was confused when he engraved the inscription on the weight and mistakenly used mirrored writing, as he was accustomed to do. From that apparent error we can learn about the general rule: the artists who engraved weights during the First Temple period were the same artists who specialized in creating seals used to sign official documents,” Shukron said in a press release. .
The excavation leader explains that “when the half-shekel tax was brought to the Temple during Solomon’s period, there were no coins, so they used silver ingots. To calculate the weight of these pieces of silver, they placed them on one side of the scales and, on the other side, they put Beka’s weight.. The Beka was equivalent to the half-shekel, which was required of all persons over the age of 20 who went up to the Temple.
The term “beka” was well known. “It was used both in the Bible and in other writings. You don’t need to ask many questions, just open the Bible. You will see that the beka is described in the Bible and what it was used for,” he said.
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