Shekel

The word shekel is based on the triliteral Proto-Semitic root ṯql, cognate to the Akkadian šiqlu or siqlu, a unit of weight equivalent to the Sumerian gin2.

Carthaginian coinage was based on the shekel and may have preceded its home town of Tyre in issuing proper coins.

The Code of Hammurabi (circa 1800 BC) sets the value of unskilled labour at approximately ten shekels per year of work, confirmed in Israelite law by comparing Deut 15:18 with Exod 21:32.

According to Levitical law, whenever a census of the Israelites was to be conducted, every person that was counted was required to pay the half-shekel for his atonement (Exodus 30:11–16).

[14] Archaeological excavations conducted at Horvat 'Ethri in Israel from 1999 to 2001 by Boaz Zissu and Amir Ganor of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) have yielded important finds, the most-prized of which being a half-Shekel coin minted in the 2nd century CE, upon which are embossed the words "Half-Shekel" in paleo-Hebrew (Hebrew: חצי השקל).

[16] The First Jewish Revolt coinage was issued from AD 66 to 70 amid the First Jewish–Roman War as a means of emphasizing the independence of Judea from Roman rule and replacing the Tyrian shekel with its image of a foreign god which had previously been minted to pay the temple tax.

Throughout, it was more common for Carthage's holdings in North Africa to employ bronze or no coinage except when paying mercenary armies and for most of the coins to circulate in Iberia, Sardinia, and Sicily.

[3] Owing to the relative purity of its silver, it became the preferred medium of payment for the Temple tax in Jerusalem, despite its royal and pagan imagery.

The money changers expelled by Jesus in the four canonical gospels are those who exchanged worshippers' baser common currency for such shekels.

The “30 pieces of silver” paid by the chief priests to Judas Iscariot in exchange for his betrayal of Jesus may be a reference to the Tyrian shekel.