Yehud coinage

The Yehud coinage is a series of small silver coins bearing the Aramaic inscription Yehud. They derive their name from the inscription YHD, "Yehud", the Aramaic name of the Achaemenid Persian province of Yehud; others are inscribed YHDH, the same name in Hebrew.

Types of coinage

The YHD coins are believed to date from the Persian period. On the other hand, it is possible that the YHDH coins are from the following Ptolemaic period.

Mildenburg dates Yehud coins from the early 4th century BCE to the reign of Ptolemy I (312–285 BCE), while Meshorer believes there was a gap during Ptolemy I's time and that minting resumed during Ptolemy II and continued into Ptolemy III, although this has been questioned. The earlier coins were almost certainly produced in imitation of Athenian coins, and were used locally as small change to supplement the larger denominations from more centralised mints elsewhere in the region.

A lot of these coins were probably minted in Jerusalem.

The use of figural art

Yehud

Yehud (Hebrew: יְהוּד) is a city in the Center District in Israel that is part of the joint municipality of Yehud-Monosson. In 2007, Yehud's population is approximately 30,000 (including Neve Monosson – see below).

History

Yehud is mentioned in the Bible in a list of towns in the area ("and Yehud and Bnei Brak and Gat Rimon" - Book of Joshua 19, 45). The Aramaic term Yehud refers to a province under the Persian empire, Yehud Medinata, in the area of what was roughly the Kingdom of Judah which issued Yehud Coinage, small silver coins inscribed with the three letters "Yhd". The actual size of Yehud during this time remains debated by scholars (e.g., did it occupy the entirety of the previous kingdom, or was it much smaller). Yehud's constituency also remains debated (e.g., was it composed only of those Judeans who returned from Babylon, or did these intermix with "the people (already) in the land" – עם הארץ).

In later centuries Yehud became the Arab town of Al-Yehudiya (in literal Arabic: "place of the Jews"), also called Al-'Abbasiyya, but the Arab population left in its entirety during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

Yehud (Babylonian province)

Yehud had been a province of the Neo-Babylonian Empire since the suppression of the Judean rebellion in 585/6 BCE. It first existed as a Jewish administrative division of the Neo-Babylonian Empire under Gedaliah, though it quickly became depopulated after his murder and another unsuccessful revolt around 581/2 BCE. The province was absorbed into the Achaemenid Empire with the collapse of the Chaldean Dynasty in 539 BCE.

Background

In the late 7th century BCE Judah became a vassal-kingdom of the Neo-Babylonian Empire; however, there were rival factions at the court in Jerusalem, some supporting loyalty to Babylon, others urging rebellion. In the early years of the 6th century, despite the strong remonstrances of the prophet Jeremiah and others, king Zedekiah revolted against Nebuchadrezzar and entered into an alliance with pharaoh Hophra of Egypt. The revolt failed, and in 597 BCE many Judahites, including the prophet Ezekiel, were exiled to Babylon. A few years later Judah revolted yet again. In 589 Nebuchadnezzar again besieged Jerusalem, and many Jews fled to Moab, Ammon, Edom and other countries to seek refuge. The city fell after an eighteen-month siege and Nebuchadnezzar again pillaged and destroyed Jerusalem and burned the Temple. Thus, by 586 BCE much of Judah was devastated, the royal family, the priesthood, and the scribes—the country's elite—were in exile in Babylon, and the former kingdom suffered a steep decline of both economy and population.