Looking For Illustrations Of Widow's Mite Types

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Author	Replies: 5 / Views: 2,017
Finn235 Pillar of the Community United States 6130 Posts	Posted 04/11/2016 2:44 pm Hello all, As previously mentioned in another thread a while back, I recently purchased a handful of widow's mites for my father in law, who is not a collector but is a pastor and a huge history buff of Biblical history. These are not the larger prutot, but rather the genuine small, ugly, 9-12mm lepta referenced in the Scripture. They have recognizable detail to a collector, but not to an untrained eye. I'm writing up a little fact sheet on the coins to detail the life of Alexander Jannaeus, his coins, and their role in everyday life in Judaea ca. 33 AD. I want to put a black and white image of the design used on the coins on this sheet, but am struggling to find a good one online... too much noise on Google Images. I'll try to get images up here soon, but these coins are using the star / anchor design, but a thinner, crude version with Hebrew writing around the outside of the star. No discernible writing on the anchor side. The only images I am finding online are of the prutah with Greek writing, or the crossed cornucopia with "Yehonatan the High Priest & Counsel of Jews". Anyone have access to a more detailed catalog? Wildwinds is not of much help here. Report this Post to the Staff

echizento Moderator United States 23731 Posts	Posted 04/11/2016 5:38 pm This might help. http://www.forumancientcoins.com/nu...idows%20mite Report this Post to the Staff
Finn235 Pillar of the Community United States 6130 Posts	Posted 04/11/2016 9:01 pm Excellent link! I believe the lepta from the lot most closely correlate with Hendin 1153--large blundered Aramaic inscription. Those images will do nicely if I cannot find anything more black and white. Report this Post to the Staff
lrbguy Pillar of the Community United States 949 Posts	Posted 04/12/2016 02:02 am Would something along these lines work for you. The coin is in my collection, so I can tailor the image to whatever you need. I have reduced it to post it here. Report this Post to the Staff
Finn235 Pillar of the Community United States 6130 Posts	Posted 04/12/2016 08:35 am Here are the coins in question: Not quite as pretty, but these miserable little coins were most likely the sort of thing that beggars and the impoverished would have used, each supposedly worth half of the more attractive prutah posted by irbguy. What I was struggling with was the fragmental Hebrew/Aramaic inscription, but I suppose that no fully struck example of this type has ever been found, because the die used was much, much bigger than the flan. Edited by Finn235 04/12/2016 08:37 am Report this Post to the Staff
lrbguy Pillar of the Community United States 949 Posts	Posted 04/12/2016 12:53 pm My apologies. You were looking only for the half. Ya'akov Meshorer discusses these coins and their inscriptions in volume 1 of Ancient Jewish Coinage. He illustrates a couple of examples with complete inscriptions: He observes that the engravers for these pieces did better with the Greek inscriptions than the Aramaic. None of this type was done in Paleo-Hebrew, and in most cases the Aramaic is poorly executed lettering that reads as gibberish. Some however, do give the reading: MLK' 'LKSNDRWS SNT KH (the last sets of letters giving the year date - here as year 25.) As you can see, the complete inscription in Aramaic ran all the way around the central star, just outside the surrounding beading. Edited by lrbguy 04/12/2016 12:57 pm Report this Post to the Staff
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