Yaakov Meshorer, 1935–2004
Leading Numismatist Taught Lessons Well Beyond Coins
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Yaakov Meshorer—the preeminent scholar of the coins of the ancient Near East, the founder of the numismatic department and later the curator of archaeology at the Israel Museum, professor of numismatics at Hebrew University and author of landmark numismatic books—died at home in Jerusalem on June 23, 2004 after a long and brave battle against cancer. He left his wife Adaya, an artist, potter and archaeological restorer; three children; three grandchildren and grieving friends all over the world.
In the days after Meshorer’s death, I spoke to some of the host of people who knew him as a colleague over many years. Their memories kept turning to Yaakov the man, Yaakov—as Yael Israeli, glass curator at the Israel Museum, remembered him—“a larger-than-life soul.”
Martin Weyl, director emeritus of the Israel Museum, recalled Meshorer’s huge enthusiasm for learning about everything, his dazzling capacity to make archaeology and, especially, the coins that had fascinated him since his boyhood, reveal history, politics, economics and human stories. When VIPs visited the museum, Weyl would often ask Meshorer to guide them through the collections. Spellbound by his knowledge of art, history, music and ancient languages, they would report to Weyl that their tour was the “experience of a lifetime.” Yaakov Meshorer became friend and adviser to collectors, conveying to them unrealized dimensions of their collections. In many instances, Weyl noted, these relationships eventually led to superb private collections, some of which later found their permanent home in the Israel Museum.
Meshorer’s first book, his 1967 Master’s thesis, Jewish Coins of the Second Temple Period, offered a new theory about the Hasmonean kings, suggesting that the first Jewish bronze coins were struck by Alexander Jannaeus (103–76 B.C.E.) rather than, as common wisdom held, by his father Hyrcanus I (135–104 B.C.E.). He repeated this assertion in his encyclopedic two-volume Ancient Jewish Coinage. The theory became widely accepted. David Hendin, a friend of Meshorer from the early 1970s and the editor of Meshorer’s two-volume work, gave a postscript to this story that revealed more about Meshorer as a scholar than about the coins themselves. Some considerable years 017after the theory was put forth, a hoard of Hasmonean coins emerged from excavations at Mt. Gerizim, near ancient Shechem. Found in a sealed context, meaning that nothing later had intruded since antiquity, the coins were of two kinds: Seleucid, with a firmly established date before 103 B.C.E., and coins of Hyrcanus I. Completely absent were the later coins of Jannaeus. When shown the hoard, Meshorer immediately realized that he had been wrong about Jannaeus being the first minter of Jewish bronzes. Clearly it had to be his father. Hendin told the story as a measure of Meshorer’s readiness to give up ideas in the face of evidence (but we must add that hundreds of Meshorer’s new interpretations have been widely accepted).
One such interpretation was the solution to a crux in the Talmud: “Silver, whenever mentioned in the Pentateuch, is Tyrian silver. What is a Tyrian silver [coin]? It is a Jerusalemite” (Tosefta Ketubot 13:20). It was long understood that Phoenician silver coins minted in Tyre—because of their good quality, 95%-pure silver—were prescribed by the Rabbis as the currency to pay the half-shekel Temple tax in Jerusalem. But important questions remained: What is the meaning of the enigmatic reference to the coins as a “Jerusalemite?” Why did Tyrian shekels, from 18 B.C.E. to 66 C.E. become irregular and lumpier than their predecessor Tyrian shekels, and why did they bear the initials “KP”? Meshorer proposed that Tyre discontinued minting these coins in 19 B.C.E., and that Jewish authorities needing them for tax payments moved the minting to Jerusalem, adding the designation KP (possibly an acronym for “By the Authority of the Roman Constitution”).
Meshorer’s many internationally recognized books included Jewish Coinage, describing all the coins struck by Jewish leaders over 500 years. In separate works he pioneered the study of Nabatean and Samarian coins. Before he died, Meshorer completed a popular book of odd and unfamiliar aspects of coins and pseudo-coins, such as tokens. Called The Other Side of the Coin, it will soon appear in Hebrew. By the end of this year, the catalog of the Abraham Sofaer coin collection, a work Meshorer had completed during his illness and had fervently hoped to see in print, should finally be published by the American Numismatic Society.
I met Yaakov Meshorer in Jerusalem more than 25 years ago, when BAR was in its infancy. During Yaakov’s last years, retired from the Israel Museum and often weakened by his cancer, he worked at home and I’d call to ask if he was up for a visit. More often than not we would have tea together and I would hear about one of his new or old passions. One day it was fossil collecting, something he began as a boy with his identical twin brother Asher. Another time he brought out his beloved violin, the instrument he played every day almost all his life until the cancer weakened his fingers. When he was denied the pleasure of making music, he began to paint and enjoyed showing his vivid, surrealistic images reflecting the battle he was waging to stay alive. And, all the time, when pain and treatments allowed him to sit at his computer and he could return to his greatest passion, he would eagerly speak about a new coin insight. But the most important thing I learned on these visits to Yaakov was that when life deals an impossible hand, it is possible to play it with grace and joy. He possessed both in rare abundance, and I thank him for sharing them with me.
Yaakov Meshorer—the preeminent scholar of the coins of the ancient Near East, the founder of the numismatic department and later the curator of archaeology at the Israel Museum, professor of numismatics at Hebrew University and author of landmark numismatic books—died at home in Jerusalem on June 23, 2004 after a long and brave battle against cancer. He left his wife Adaya, an artist, potter and archaeological restorer; three children; three grandchildren and grieving friends all over the world. In the days after Meshorer’s death, I spoke to some of the host of people who knew him as a colleague […]
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