TYRE SILVER SHEKEL – MILLENNIUM (BIRTH OF CHRIST) ISSUE – XF NGC GRADED GREEK PHOENICIA BIBLICAL COIN (Inv. 21276)

$7,500.00

21276. PHOENICIA. TYRE.
Silver Shekel, 13.96 g, 27 mm. “MILLENNIUM” 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, KPϚ above MA monogram in right field, Phoenician letter B between legs.
Cf. DCA Tyre Supplement Release 2, 452-453, this variety with B unlisted in Cohen.
NGC graded XF, Strike 4/5, Surface 3/5, struck from a worn obverse die, a rare and extremely important year, with 25 specimens currently listed 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”).