How Coins Were First Made

The first coins were likely minted in Lydia (modern-day Turkey), sometime before 700 B.C.E. Metalworkers in various countries were soon mass-producing coins, and people throughout the lands mentioned in the Bible began using them.

How were the coins made? A worker would remove molten metal from a furnace (1) and pour it into hollow casts, producing blank discs known as flans (2). He would then insert the flans between metal dies that were engraved with symbols or pictures (3). Next came the hammer strike that imprinted the image onto the flan (4). The speed of the process often resulted in coins that were struck with the image off-center. Workers would sort the coins, weigh them to make sure that they were of a consistent value and, if needed, trim off any excess metal (5).

[Box/​Pictures on page 26]

Facts About Coins

● One of the smallest coins in circulation in first-century Palestine was the copper lepton, also known as a mite. A laborer would earn two lepta in just 15 minutes. It was likely two lepta that the widow dropped into the temple treasury chest.​—Mark 12:42.

● The silver drachma was a Greek coin that took almost a full day’s labor to earn. (Luke 15:8, 9) Two drachmas was the amount all Jewish men paid yearly as a temple tax.​—Matthew 17:24.

● The silver denarius was a Roman coin that bore the image of Caesar, so it was ideally suited to serve as “the tribute” coin exacted from every adult Jewish male during the Roman occupation. (Romans 13:7) An employer would pay a laborer one denarius for a 12-hour workday.​—Matthew 20:2-14.

● A pure silver shekel made in the city of Tyre circulated in Palestine during the time Jesus was on earth. The 30 “silver pieces” that the chief priests paid to Judas Iscariot for his betrayal of Jesus may have been Tyrian shekels.​—Matthew 26:14-16.

Coins shown actual size