| Show historians stirred by find of ancient coins coins that shed new light on an obscure period of jewish history have been discovered in a private collection in jerusalem the coins are arc ot of the fifth century B C which la is years older than any jewish coins heretofore known the money known to have been regularly used in ancient palestine was foreign money chiefly coins of na nai tiona which in turn dominated the hebrew country it has been supposed that the jews were not allowed to issue their own coinage until a syrian king granted that liberty about B H C the discovery shows that after the tha persians swept the from power and allowed the exiled jews to return to jerusalem tile persian king granted autonomy the jerusalem coins are said to match a small silver coin which for or the last years has been in the british museum it bears an inscription of three letters abich it Is said always have been wrongly interpreted by scholars and therefore the significance of the coin was not completely understood he reads the letters as which was at one time the official name of the province of judea the coins bear the engraving of an owl under which appear the three letters la in the old phoenician hebrew script |
