TYRE SILVER SHEKEL – “MILLENNIUM” CHRIST LIFETIME ISSUE OF YEAR 126 (1 BC/AD 1) – CHOICE VF NGC GRADED GREEK PHOENICIA COIN (Inv 19820)

$9,850.00

19820. PHOENICIA. TYRE.
Silver Shekel, 13.81 g, 25 mm. BIRTH OF CHRIST issue dated Tyre year 126 (1 BC/AD 1).
Obv. Laureate head of Melkart right. Rev. ΤΥΡΟΥ ΙΕΡΑΣ ΚΑΙ ΑΣΥΛΟΥ, eagle standing left on prow, PKS? (date) above club in left field, KP above MA monogram in right field, Phoenician letter B between legs.
DCA Tyre Supplement Release 2, 454 (same obverse die).
NGC graded CHOICE VF, Strike 4/5, Surface 2/5, a rare year, with only 9 specimens on CoinArchives.

The shekels of Tyre featuring the head of Heracles–Melkart on the obverse and an eagle on a galley prow on the reverse are famous as the only coins accepted for payments to the Jerusalem Temple and as the probable coins paid to Judas Iscariot by the Temple authorities for his betrayal of Jesus. This particular shekel is especially notable for its so–called “millennium” date. It was struck in year 126 of the Tyrian civic era which is equivalent to 1 BC/AD 1. According to the computations of the sixth century AD monk, Dionysius Exiguus, this was the year of Jesus’ birth, which inaugurated the custom of counting the years of the Gregorian and Christianized Julian calendars using anno Domini (“in the year of the Lord”). Unfortunately, as it turned out, Dionysius was slightly off in his calculations and modern scholarship now generally places the birth of Jesus sometime in the period between 6 and 2 BC based on historical and astronomical considerations. The Augustan tetradrachms below were struck at Antioch during precisely this time frame.