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Shlomi Ammami, Staff Officer of Archaeology—Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria

PAYING YOUR WAY. In the Gospel of Thomas, getting to a higher spiritual realm after death involved knowing the right answers to demonic interrogation. In other cultures, getting there involved a payment to a kind of gatekeeper. This first-century C.E. coin found at Jericho in the mouth of a skull was thought to be used as “fare” to allow passage to the afterlife. The date is the sixth year of Herod Agrippa’s reign. It features three ears of barley on the reverse.