Ancient Archaic Period - 500-400 BCE Achaemenid Persian Empire AV Daric NGC AU

This coin is a Persian Daric, a gold coin which, along with the silver Siglos, represents the bimetallic coinage of its time. Cyrus the Great pioneered coins in the Persian Empire after 546 BC. It was Darius I (521-486 BC) who introduced a thick gold coin with a standard weight of 8.4 grams that equaled the value of 20 silver coins. The Daric displays an image of a Persian king holding a bow in his left hand and a spear in his right. He seems to be wearing a crown atop his head. The gold employed for striking these coins had a purity of 95.83 percent.

Detail of Darius from the "Darius Vase" on exhibit at the Archaeological Museum of Naples, c. 340-320 BCE.

The coin is mentioned in the Torah, in which it is called the “adarkonim” when the Israelites had contact with it when their Babylonian captors were conquered by Persia. It is mentioned in the first Book of Chronicles when King David asks a group of people to make donation for construction of the Temple. Those people gave generously and included “ten thousands darics of gold” in their donations. It is also mentioned in Ezra 8:27. Also, a derivative Greek word “darkemonium” is used in Ezra 2:69 and three times in Nehemiah &:70-72.