BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

An Egyptian Queen in Jerusalem

Rare Egyptian gold coin discovered

Both sides of the gold coin of the Egyptian queen, Berenice II. Courtesy Eliyahu Yanai, City of David.

“Of Queen Berenice” reads the reverse of this solid gold coin discovered in the Givati Parking Lot excavations in Jerusalem. Minted for Queen Berenice II of Egypt (r. 246–222 BCE), the extremely rare coin is one of only 20 that are known and the first ever discovered within an archaeological excavation. While the rarity of the coin makes it an incredible find in its own right, it also serves as further evidence that Hellenistic Jerusalem was far from the small and poor city that scholars have traditionally thought.

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Minting an Egyptian Queen

Wife of Pharaoh Ptolemy III and ancestor of the famous queen Cleopatra (r. 51–30 BCE), Queen Berenice II was one of the many Hellenistic rulers of Egypt following the conquest of the region by Alexander the Great. While some ancient queens were often little more than royal consorts, the coin’s Greek inscription, basilisses (“of the queen”), suggests that Berenice may have held significant power in her own right. The same inscription is even found on the coins of Cleopatra.

The gold coin, uncovered in the ongoing excavations in the Givati Parking Lot site, was likely minted in Alexandria between 246 and 241 BCE, possibly as a special payment for soldiers who had fought in the Third Syrian War against the Seleucids. Although only a quarter-drachma, the coin is a remarkable 99.3 percent pure gold. On one side, Berenice II is depicted wearing a diadem and veil with a necklace around her neck, a typical depiction of a Hellenistic queen. The other side includes a cornucopia flanked by two stars and surrounded by the inscription. To date, only a handful of Berenice coins are known, with none having come from a secure archaeological context or from outside of Egypt.

Portrait of the Egyptian queen Berenice II under a magnifying glass. Courtesy Eliyahu Yanai, City of David.

According to Yiftah Shalev, director of the excavation, and Efrat Bocher of the Center for the Study of Ancient Jerusalem, “The fact that such a rare gold coin was discovered in Jerusalem during the time when it was under Ptolemaic rule provides a fascinating glimpse into the city’s status in those years and possible relations between the Jerusalem authorities and the Ptolemaic Empire.”

While the traditional scholarly view has held that Jerusalem remained small and economically unimportant following the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, the discovery of the coin and other impressive discoveries over the last few years has begun to shift that view. These recent discoveries have instead suggested that the city already began to recover during the Persian period and was continuing to grow in importance under Ptolemaic rule.

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