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BABATHA, RABBI LEVI AND THEODOSIUS: BLACK COINS IN LATE ANTIQUITY DAVID GOLDENBERG University of Pennsylvania In six Greek papyri recovered from NaΩal ºever on the western shore of the Dead Sea the word “blacks” appears as an otherwise unknown term of coinage. Various monetary sums are expressed as so many “blacks,” e.g., “one black and thirty lepta” or “710 blacks of silver.” The term for this black money is variously given in masculine, femi- nine, and neuter ( m°lanew , mela¤naw , m°lan ßn ). The documents, four of which make up part of the Babatha archives, are dated between 110 and 130 CE . 1 Naphtali Lewis, who edited the Babatha documents, suggested that the Greek term represented a variant or corruption of “mina” ( mnç ). Glen Bowersock, however, argued that Lewis’s interpretation was based on a misunderstanding of the associated term leptã , which means coins of very low value, presumably from the low degree of fi neness ( leptÒw “thin”). 2 Bowersock conjectured that the small amount of silver in these coins would have allowed for a process of oxidation to have turned the coins black. He noted that in the last years of
Dead Sea Discoveries – Brill
Published: Jan 1, 2007
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