GIRL FINDS ANCIENT HALF-SHEKEL

A surprising and apparently shocking discovery in Neve Tzuf, in Binyamin: Hallel, a girl of about nine, discovered an ancient coin that turned out to be a half-shekel coin with the inscription "Holy Jerusalem."

Arutz Sheva spoke with the girl, Hallel, and her father, attorney Shimon Halevy, and Prof. Zohar Amar, who conducted the preliminary examination of the coin.

Of the day his daughter showed him the coin, he says: "The girl curiously approached me with a dark coin and asked me 'Dad, does this seem important to you?' This is a coin with markings like an Israeli shekel, but it does not look like a coin of our time. At first it was hard for me to believe that this was something special, and I told her to give me the coin and I would check."

In order to check the coin, Halevy turned to a resident of the town, Prof. Zohar Amar, an history expert: "I was impressed that he was very interested in asking questions," the father says. "We went to his house and showed him the coin. His wife Tamar also has knowledge of these things. They looked and were very skeptical and then decided that the real test would be to take a very delicate scale and see if the weight fits that of a shekel. Prof. Amar expected it to be 14 grams, which is a shekel. When it was less he was hesitant, but then he said it was half. That's the half-shekel piece."

Later we spoke with the daughter, Hallel, who told us about the trip where she found the coin at the archaeological site near her town, Neve Tzuf-Halamish. Not much is known about the site, she says, except that in the past people lived there.

Hallel noticed the silver coin during the tour, because "I usually like to pick things up from the ground." For a few days she did not think she had a particularly exciting discovery, but it was her sister who encouraged her to show her father.

About her current feelings, now that she knows that the coin will probably not remain in her hands but will be handed over to the state authorities, she feels a bit sad, but also moved in light of the significance of finding a coin from the time of the Temple near the community in which she lives.

To read the complete article, see:
Ancient coin discovered in Halamish (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/234283)

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