Before dawn, with just a few hours of sleep and probably only one cup of coffee, the archaeology volunteers are ready to dig. Always filled with excitement and anticipation—perhaps a little sleepy because of the early hour— yet with the same lingering question: What will we find today?

“Coin!” —the favorite shout of many volunteers. After so many years of excavations in Magdala, I remember how finding a coin always sparked an uncontrollable excitement that quickly drew everyone’s attention. “I found a coin!” the volunteers would say, as we approached to record it properly. Almost all our volunteers left with that experience in their memory.

In Magdala, we’ve found many coins: most of them bronze, small, and not very eye-catching at first glance… but deeply meaningful. Then the question arises: what is so special about finding a coin? What happens after we uncover one?

I’ve always thought that coins —like other archaeological artifacts— connect us to the people of the past. Their intrinsic value has long been lost—a shekel from the first century doesn’t hold the same worth today— but their symbolic value has grown. They were, quite literally, someone’s money; objects that passed from hand to hand and now allow us to glimpse fragments of ancient lives.

For archaeologists, the value isn’t in the metal —whether bronze, gold, or silver— nor merely in its antiquity. The true value lies in the information they hold: dates, economies, purchasing power, trade routes, exchange of goods… Each coin, once studied, becomes a link to the history of the ancient world.

That is the secret value of coins: beyond their material form, they remain as precious as the day someone once held them, and they mean far more than just a denomination.

If you’d like to learn more about the coins of Magdala, you can read this article.

And if you’d like to experience the thrill of finding a coin yourself, stay tuned for our upcoming excavations.

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