Rare silver coin 2550 years old discovered in Israel (photo)

Israeli archaeologists have discovered an extremely rare silver coin. The find dates back to the period of Persian rule in the 6th-5th century BC.

The coin was discovered at an excavation site in the Judean Hills. The discovery sheds light on the transition from the use of pieces of metal to the very beginnings of the world's first coins, allisraelnews reports.

The coin itself is a very rare type, and now joins a limited collection of about a dozen coins of this type found during legal excavations in Israel.

Read also: An inscription 1500 years old found in Israel: Jesus Christ was mentioned (photo)

The coin was intentionally broken or cut into two pieces, indicating later use in the 4th century BC as a weighed piece of silver rather than as a coin. This phenomenon is rare in numismatics, the science of interpreting ancient coins.

It is interpreted as evidence of the use of precious coins for various purposes of trade and payment. The purpose of cutting coins was, for example, to halve their value or sometimes to use them as symbols, which often happened with bronze coins.

Unlike later examples, the coin was minted with a square stamp embedded in one face. Stamping the royal symbol on a piece of silver was an official way to prove the authenticity and quality of the metal to traders and international markets.

As a reminder, ancient Egyptian tombs and a statue of the "god of silence" were found in Saqqara.

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