‘Familiar looking coin found in Jerusalem’

    

Eliyahu Yanai/City of David

There is something going on lately with amateur archeologists unearthing ancient coins. It seems hardly a month passes without some guy with a metal detector finding a cache of Roman or Saxon or some other gold and silver in Britain. A few weeks ago, a child volunteering at a dig in Jerusalem brought to light a 2000-year-old shekel that should look familiar to Mark Master Masons.

Liel Krutokop, age 11, plunged her fingers into her very first bucket when a round object made itself conspicuous amid the dirt taken from the City of David area. It turned out to be a shekel of pure silver dating to 67 or 68 C.E.—The Great Revolt—when Judea was in rebellion against the Roman Empire.

Coil’s Masonic Encyclopedia 

In Freemasonry, tokens closely resembling such ancient coins have a symbolic value in Mark Masonry. In the United States, they typically are called Chapter Pennies on account of their use in the Mark Master Mason Degree, which is conferred in Royal Arch chapters.

I’m assuming whoever lost this coin two millennia ago had some explaining to do when he got home.

Congratulations Miss Krutokop!