1.
Israeli new shekel
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The new shekel is divided into 100 agora. The new shekel has been in use since 1 January 1986, the currency sign for the new shekel ⟨ ₪ ⟩ is a combination of the first Hebrew letters of the words shekel and ẖadash. Alongside the shekel sign, the abbreviations of NIS, שח. The origin of the shekel is from the ancient biblical currency by the same name. Shekel is any of several ancient units of weight or of currency in ancient Israel, initially, it may have referred to a weight of barley. In ancient Israel, the shekel was known to be about 180 grains, from the formation of the modern State of Israel on 14 May 1948 through 1952 banknotes continued to be issued by the Anglo-Palestine Bank as Palestine pound which was pegged to the British Pound. In 1952, the Anglo-Palestine Bank changed its name to Bank Leumi Le-Yisrael, the Israeli pound was the currency of the State of Israel from June 1952 until 23 February 1980, when it was replaced with the shekel on 24 February 1980. From 1955, after the Bank of Israel was established and took over the duty of issuing banknotes, only the Hebrew name was used, along with the symbol I£. The pegging to the British Pound was abolished on 1 January 1954, and in 1960, during the 1960s, a debate over the non-Hebrew name of the Israeli currency resulted in a law ordering the Minister of Finance to change the name pound into a Hebrew name, Shekel. The law allowed the minister to decide on a date for the change. The law did not come into effect until February 1980, when the Israeli government decided to change the monetary system, the shekel, now known as the old shekel, was the currency of the State of Israel between 24 February 1980 and 31 December 1985. The Israeli pound and its successor, the old shekel, all experienced frequent devaluations against foreign currencies during the 1960s and 70s and this trend culminated in the old shekel experiencing hyperinflation in the early 1980s. After inflation was contained as a result of the 1985 Economic Stabilization Plan, as a result of these factors, inflation has been relatively low and the country now maintains a positive balance of payments, with a current account surplus equivalent to about 3% of its GDP in 2010. Since 1 January 2003, the new shekel has been a freely convertible currency, since 7 May 2006, new shekel derivative trading has also been available on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. This makes the new one of only twenty or so world currencies for which there are widely available currency futures contracts in the foreign exchange market. It is also a currency that can be exchanged by consumers in parts of the world. On 26 May 2008, CLS Bank International announced that it would settle payment instructions in new shekels, since 20 March 2003, the new shekel has gained more than 30% in value against the US dollar. In 1985, coins in denominations of 1,5, and 10 agora and ₪½, in 1990, ₪5 coins were introduced, followed by ₪10 coins in 1995
2.
Ancient Mesopotamian units of measurement
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Ancient Mesopotamian units of measurement originated in the loosely organized city-states of Early Dynastic Sumer. Each city, kingdom and trade guild had its own standards until the formation of the Akkadian Empire when Sargon of Akkad issued a common standard and this standard was improved by Naram-Sin, but fell into disuse after the Akkadian Empire dissolved. The standard of Naram-Sin was readopted in the Ur III period by the Nanše Hymn which reduced a plethora of multiple standards to a few agreed upon common groupings, successors to Sumerian civilization including the Babylonians, Assyrians, and Persians continued to use these groupings. The systems that would become the classical standard for Mesopotamia were developed in parallel with writing during Uruk Period Sumer. Studies of protocuneiform indicate twelve separate counting systems used in Uruk, sexagesimal System S used to count slaves, animals, fish, wooden objects, stone objects, containers. The idea of a number did not yet exist, thus all quantities were written as metrological symbols. For example there was a symbol for one-sheep and another for one-day, about 600 of these metrological symbols exist, for this reason archaic Sumerian metrology is complex and not fully understood. In general however, length, volume, and mass are derived from a standard cube, called gur, filled with barley, wheat, water. The mass of a gur-cube, called gun2 is defined as the weight a laden ass can carry, however, because of the different specific gravities of these substances combined with dual numerical bases, multiple sizes of the gur-cube were used without consensus. The different gur-cubes are related by proportion, based on the water gur-cube, according to four basic coefficients and it is a Euboic Mana +1 Diesis. This standard is the reference used by archaeologists to reconstruct the system. A major improvement came in 2150 BCE during the Akkadian Empire under the reign of Naram-Sin when the systems were unified by a single official standard. His reform is considered the first standardized system of measure in Mesopotamia, the royal gur-cube was a theoretical cuboid of water approximately 6m × 6m ×0. 5m from which all other units could be derived. The Neo-Sumerians continued use of the royal gur-cube as indicated by the Letter of Nanse issued in 2000 BCE by Gudea, use of the same standard continued through the Babylonian, Assyrian, and Persian Empires. Units of Length are prefixed by the logogram DU a convention of the archaic period counting system from which it was evolved, basic length was used in architecture and field division. Distance units were geodectic as distinguished from non-geodectic basic length units, Sumerian geodesy divided latitude into seven zones between equator and pole. The GAN2 system G counting system evolved into area measurements, a special unit measuring brick quantity by area was called the brick-garden which held 720 bricks. The ± value represents 1 standard deviation, all values have been rounded to second digit of the standard deviation
3.
Electrum
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Electrum is a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver, with trace amounts of copper and other metals. It has also been produced artificially, and is known as green gold. The ancient Greeks called it gold or white gold, as opposed to refined gold and its colour ranges from pale to bright yellow, depending on the proportions of gold and silver. This suggests that one reason for the invention of coinage in that area was to increase the profits from seigniorage by issuing currency with a gold content than the commonly circulating metal. Electrum was used as early as the third millennium BC in Old Kingdom of Egypt, sometimes as a coating to the pyramidions atop ancient Egyptian pyramids. It was also used in the making of ancient drinking vessels, the first metal coins ever made were of electrum and date back to the end of the 7th century or the beginning of the 6th century BC. For several decades, the medals awarded with the Nobel Prize have been made of gold-plated green gold, the name electrum was also used to denote German ‘silver’, mainly for its use in making technical instruments. The name electrum is the Latinized form of the Greek word ἤλεκτρον, electrum was often referred to as white gold in ancient times, but could be more accurately described as pale gold, as it is usually pale yellow or yellowish-white in colour. The modern use of the white gold usually concerns gold alloyed with any one or a combination of nickel, silver. Electrum consists primarily of gold and silver but is found with traces of platinum, copper. The name is mostly applied informally to compositions between about 20-80% gold and 20-80% silver atoms, but these are called gold or silver depending on the dominant element. Analysis of the composition of electrum in ancient Greek coinage dating from about 600 BC shows that the content was about 55. 5% in the coinage issued by Phocaea. In the early period, the gold content of electrum ranged from 46% in Phokaia to 43% in Mytilene. In later coinage from these areas, dating to 326 BC, in the Hellenistic period, electrum coins with a regularly decreasing proportion of gold were issued by the Carthaginians. In the later Eastern Roman Empire controlled from Constantinople, the purity of the coinage was reduced. Electrum is mentioned in an account of an expedition sent by Pharaoh Sahure of the Fifth dynasty of Egypt and it is also discussed by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia. Electrum is possibly referred to three times in the Bible, in all three instances it is used to describe a type of glow seen in visions by the prophet Ezekiel. Electrum is believed to have used in coins circa 600 BC in Lydia under the reign of Alyattes II
4.
Ancient Carthage
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Carthage was the Phoenician city-state of Carthage and during the 7th to 3rd centuries BC, included its sphere of influence, the Carthaginian Empire. The empire extended over much of the coast of North Africa as well as encompassing substantial parts of coastal Iberia, Carthage was founded in 814 BC. At the height of the prominence it served as a major hub of trade. The city also had to deal with potentially hostile Berbers, the inhabitants of the area where Carthage was built. In 146 BC, after the third and final Punic War, Roman forces destroyed, redesigned, nearly all of the other Phoenician city-states and former Carthaginian dependencies subsequently fell into Roman hands. According to Roman sources, Phoenician colonists from modern-day Lebanon, led by Dido, Queen Elissa was an exiled princess of the ancient Phoenician city of Tyre. At its peak, the metropolis she founded, Carthage, came to be called the city, ruling 300 other cities around the western Mediterranean Sea. Elissas brother, Pygmalion of Tyre, had murdered Elissas husband, Elissa escaped the tyranny of her own country, founding the new city of Carthage and subsequently its later dominions. Details of her life are sketchy and confusing, but the following can be deduced from various sources, according to Justin, Princess Elissa was the daughter of King Belus II of Tyre. When he died, the throne was jointly bequeathed to her brother, Pygmalion and she married her uncle Acerbas, also known as Sychaeus, the High Priest of Melqart, a man with both authority and wealth comparable to the king. This led to increased rivalry between the elite and the monarchy. Pygmalion was a tyrant, lover of both gold and intrigue, who desired the authority and fortune enjoyed by Acerbas, Pygmalion assassinated Acerbas in the temple and kept the misdeed concealed from his sister for a long time, deceiving her with lies about her husbands death. At the same time, the people of Tyre called for a single sovereign, in the Roman epic of Virgil, the Aeneid, Queen Dido, the Greek name for Elissa, is first introduced as a highly esteemed character. In just seven years, since their exodus from Tyre, the Carthaginians have rebuilt a successful kingdom under her rule and her subjects adore her and present her with a festival of praise. Her character is perceived by Virgil as even more noble when she offers asylum to Aeneas and his men, who have recently escaped from Troy. A spirit in the form of the god, Mercury, sent by Jupiter, reminds Aeneas that his mission is not to stay in Carthage with his new-found love, Dido. Virgil ends his legend of Dido with the story that, when Aeneas tells Dido, her heart broken, as she lay dying, she predicted eternal strife between Aeneas people and her own, rise up from my bones, avenging spirit she says, an invocation of Hannibal. The settlements at Crete and Sicily were in conflict with the Greeks
5.
Tanit
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Tanit was a Berber Punic and Phoenician goddess, the chief deity of Carthage alongside her consort Baal Hammon. She was also adopted by the Punic Berber people, Tanit is also called Tinnit, Tannou or Tangou. The name appears to have originated in Carthage, though it not appear in local theophorous names. She was equivalent to the moon-goddess Astarte, and later worshipped in Roman Carthage in her Romanized form as Dea Caelestis, in modern-day Tunisian Arabic, it is customary to invoke Omek Tannou or Oumouk Tangou, in years of drought to bring rain. Similarly, Tunisian and many other forms of Arabic refer to Baali farming to refer to non-irrigated agriculture. Tanit was worshiped in Punic contexts in the Western Mediterranean, from Malta to Gades into Hellenistic times, from the fifth century BCE onwards, Tanits worship is associated with that of Baal Hammon. She is given the epithet pene baal and the title rabat and her shrine excavated at Sarepta in southern Phoenicia revealed an inscription that identified her for the first time in her homeland and related her securely to the Phoenician goddess Astarte. One site where Tanit is uncovered is at Kerkouane, in the Cap Bon peninsula in Tunisia, the origins of Tanit are to be found in the pantheon of Ugarit, especially in the Ugaritic goddess Anat, a consumer of blood and flesh. There is significant, albeit disputed, evidence, both archaeological and within ancient written sources, pointing towards child sacrifice forming part of the worship of Tanit, some archaeologists theorised that infant sacrifices have occurred. Lawrence E. Stager, who directed the excavations of the Carthage Tophet in the 1970s, paolo Xella of the National Research Council in Rome summarized the textual, epigraphical, and archaeological evidence for Carthaginian infant sacrifice. Tophet is a derived from the Bible, used to refer to a site near Jerusalem at which Canaanites and Israelites who strayed from Judaism by practicing Canaanite idolatry would sacrifice children. It is now used as a term for all such sites with cremated human. The Hebrew Bible does not specify that the Israelite victims were buried, only burned and we have no idea how the Phoenicians themselves referred to the places of burning or burial, or to the practice itself. Several apparent Tophets have been identified, chiefly a large one in Carthage, dubbed the Tophet of Salammbó, soil in the Tophet of Salammbó was found to be full of olive wood charcoal, probably from the sacrificial pyres. It was the location of the temple of the goddess Tanit, animal remains, mostly sheep and goats, found inside some of the Tophet urns, strongly suggest that this was not a burial ground for children who died prematurely. The animals were sacrificed to the gods, presumably in place of children and it is conjectured that the children unlucky enough not to have substitutes were also sacrificed and then buried in the Tophet. The area covered by the Tophet in Carthage was probably over an acre, about 20,000 urns were deposited between 400 BCE and 200 BCE, with the practice continuing until the early years of the Christian period. The urns contained the bones of newborns and in some cases the bones of fetuses
6.
Baal Hammon
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Baal Hammon, properly Baʿal Hammon or Hamon, was the chief god of Carthage. He was a weather god considered responsible for the fertility of vegetation and he was depicted as a bearded older man with curling rams horns. Baʿal Hammons female cult partner was Tanit, the worship of Baʿal Hammon flourished in the Phoenician colony of Carthage. His supremacy among the Carthaginian gods is believed to date to the fifth century BC, modern scholars identify him variously with the Northwest Semitic god El or with Dagon. He was probably never identified with Baʿal Melqart, although one finds this equation in older scholarship, the interpretatio graeca identified him with the Titan Cronus. Greco-Roman sources report that the Carthaginians burned their children as offerings to Baʿal Hammon, attributes of his Romanized form as an African Saturn indicate that Hammon was a fertility god. The meaning of Hammon is unclear, in the 19th century, when Ernest Renan excavated the ruins of Hammon, the modern Umm al-‘Awamid between Tyre and Acre, he found two Phoenician inscriptions dedicated to El-Hammon. Since El was normally identified with Cronus, and Ba‘al Hammon was also identified with Cronus, more often a connection with Northwest Semitic ḥammān has been proposed, suggesting the sense Lord of the Brazier. He has been identified with a solar deity. Yigael Yadin thought him to be a moon god, edward Lipinski identifies him with the god Dagon. Frank Moore Cross argued for a connection to Hamōn, the Ugaritic name for Mount Amanus, baal Hamon, Hammon, Khamon, or Ammon was a place mentioned in the Song of Solomon. It was the location of a vineyard owned by Solomon. The locale has been supposed to be identical with Baal-gad, others identify it with Belamon, in Central Israel, near Dothaim. Some have suggested that it is not to be taken as a literal place, baal Carthaginian religion Eastons Bible Dictionary 1897 On-line parallel Bible, Song of Solomon 8,11
7.
Silver
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Silver is a metallic element with symbol Ag and atomic number 47. The symbol Ag stems from Latin argentum, derived from the Greek ὰργὀς, a soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. The metal is found in the Earths crust in the pure, free form, as an alloy with gold and other metals. Most silver is produced as a byproduct of copper, gold, lead, Silver is more abundant than gold, but it is much less abundant as a native metal. Its purity is measured on a per mille basis, a 94%-pure alloy is described as 0.940 fine. As one of the seven metals of antiquity, silver has had a role in most human cultures. Silver has long valued as a precious metal. Silver metal is used in many premodern monetary systems in bullion coins, Silver is used in numerous applications other than currency, such as solar panels, water filtration, jewelry, ornaments, high-value tableware and utensils, and as an investment medium. Silver is used industrially in electrical contacts and conductors, in specialized mirrors, window coatings, Silver compounds are used in photographic film and X-rays. Dilute silver nitrate solutions and other compounds are used as disinfectants and microbiocides, added to bandages and wound-dressings, catheters. Silver is similar in its physical and chemical properties to its two neighbours in group 11 of the periodic table, copper and gold. This distinctive electron configuration, with an electron in the highest occupied s subshell over a filled d subshell. Silver is a soft, ductile and malleable transition metal. Silver crystallizes in a cubic lattice with bulk coordination number 12. Unlike metals with incomplete d-shells, metallic bonds in silver are lacking a covalent character and are relatively weak and this observation explains the low hardness and high ductility of single crystals of silver. Silver has a brilliant white metallic luster that can take a polish. Protected silver has greater optical reflectivity than aluminium at all wavelengths longer than ~450 nm, at wavelengths shorter than 450 nm, silvers reflectivity is inferior to that of aluminium and drops to zero near 310 nm. The electrical conductivity of silver is the greatest of all metals, greater even than copper, during World War II in the US,13540 tons of silver were used in electromagnets for enriching uranium, mainly because of the wartime shortage of copper
8.
Tyre, Lebanon
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Tyre, sometimes romanized as Sour, is a city in the South Governorate of Lebanon. There were approximately 117,000 inhabitants in 2003, however, the government of Lebanon has released only rough estimates of population numbers since 1932, so an accurate statistical accounting is not possible. Tyre juts out from the coast of the Mediterranean and is located about 80 km south of Beirut, the name of the city means rock after the rocky formation on which the town was originally built. The adjective for Tyre is Tyrian, and the inhabitants are Tyrians, Tyre is an ancient Phoenician city and the legendary birthplace of Europa and Dido. Today it is the fourth largest city in Lebanon and houses one of the major ports. The city has a number of ancient sites, including its Roman Hippodrome which was added to UNESCOs list of World Heritage Sites in 1979. Tyre originally consisted of two urban centres, Tyre itself, which was on an island just off shore. Alexander the Great connected the island to the mainland by constructing a causeway during his siege of the city, the original island city had two harbours, one on the south side and the other on the north side of the island. The harbour on the side has silted over, but the harbour on the north side is still in use. Tyre was founded around 2750 BC according to Herodotus and was built as a walled city upon the mainland. Phoenicians from Tyre settled in houses around Memphis, south of the temple of Hephaestus in a called the Tyrian Camp. Tyres name appears on monuments as early as 1300 BC, philo of Byblos quotes the antiquarian authority Sanchuniathon as stating that it was first occupied by Hypsuranius. Sanchuniathons work is said to be dedicated to Abibalus king of Berytus—possibly the Abibaal who was king of Tyre, there are ten Amarna letters dated 1350 BC from the mayor, Abimilku, written to Akenaten. The subject is often water, wood and the Habiru overtaking the countryside of the mainland, the commerce of the ancient world was gathered into the warehouses of Tyre. The city of Tyre was particularly known for the production of a rare and extraordinarily expensive sort of dye, produced from the murex shellfish. The colour was, in ancient cultures, reserved for the use of royalty or at least the nobility, Tyre was often attacked by Egypt, besieged by Shalmaneser V, who was assisted by the Phoenicians of the mainland, for five years. From 586 until 573 BC, the city was besieged by Nebuchadnezzar II until it agreed to pay a tribute. The Achaemenid Empire conquered the city in 539 BC and kept it under its rule until Alexander the Great laid siege to the city, in 315 BC, Alexanders former general Antigonus began his own siege of Tyre, taking the city a year later
9.
Melqart
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Melqart was the tutelary god of the Phoenician city of Tyre. Melqart was often titled Ba‘l Ṣūr, Lord of Tyre, in Greek, by interpretatio graeca he was identified with Heracles and referred to as the Tyrian Herakles. As Tyrian trade and colonization expanded, Melqart became venerated in Phoenician, Melqart is likely to have been the particular Ba‘al found in the Tanakh whose worship was prominently introduced to Israel by King Ahab and largely eradicated by King Jehu. I visited the temple, and found it richly adorned with a number of offerings, in a conversation which I held with the priests, I inquired how long their temple had been built, and found by their answer that they, too, differed from the Hellenes. They said that the temple was built at the time that the city was founded. In Tyre I remarked another temple where the god was worshipped as the Thasian Heracles. So I went on to Thasos, where I found a temple of Heracles which had built by the Phoenicians who colonised that island when they sailed in search of Europa. Even this was five generations earlier than the time when Heracles, the Macedonian month of Peritius corresponds to our February, indicating this annual awakening was in no way a solstitial celebration. It would have coincided with the ending of the winter rains. The annual observation of the revival of Melqarts awakening may identify Melqart as a life-death-rebirth deity, the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus was a native of Lepcis Magna in North Africa, an originally Phoenician city where worship of Melqart was widespread. The name of Melqart was invoked in oaths sanctioning contracts, according to Dr. Carthage even sent a tribute of 10% of the public treasury to the god in Tyre up until the Hellenistic period. In Tyre, the high priest of Melqart ranked second only to the king, Melqart protected the Punic areas of Sicily such as Ras Melqart Cape of Melqart, where his head, indistinguishable from a Heracles, appears on locally-minted coins of the 4th century BCE. Temples to Melqart are found at least three Phoenician/Punic sites in Spain, Cádiz, Ibiza in the Balearic Islands and Cartagena, near Gades/Gádeira was the westernmost temple of Tyrian Heracles, near the eastern shore of the island. Another temple to Melqart was at Ebyssus, in one of four Phoenician sites on the south coast. In 2004 a highway crew in the Avinguda Espanya, uncovered a further Punic temple in the excavated roadbed, texts found mention Melqart among other Punic gods Eshmun, Astarte and Baʻl. Another Iberian temple to Melqart has been identified at Carthago Nova, the Tyrian gods protection extended to the sacred promontory of the Iberian peninsula, the westernmost point of the known world, ground so sacred it was forbidden even to spend the night. Hannibal strengthened himself spiritually by prayer and sacrifice at the Altar of Melqart and he returned to New Carthage with his mind focused on the god and on the eve of departure to Italy he saw a strange vision which he believed was sent by Melqart. A youth of divine beauty appeared to Hannibal in the night, the youth told Hannibal he had been sent by supreme deity, Melqart, to guide the son of Hamilcar to Italy
⟩, although it was more commonly denominated as S or IS. It was subdivided into 100 new agoras or agorot. It suffered from hyperinflation and was quickly replaced.
