There are some 750,000 coins stored in one room in a well-protected Israel Antiquities Authority vault and Donald T. Ariel, the head of the IAA's Coin Department, stands watch over them all.

Ariel, who immigrated to Israel from the United States, has headed the department since 1991. He is the editor of the Israel Numismatic Research journal and serves as the coin expert on several ongoing excavations in the country. He took The Times of Israel Community on a virtual tour of the history of Holy Land coinage and pulled out some of the IAA's treasures during a recent Behind the Headlines conversation.

The foundation of the coin collection is housed in mahogany wood boxes built by the British Mandate almost 100 years ago. The original boxes stand to one side, segregating the collection, which was amassed through purchases from coin dealers, versus the excavated coins the IAA holds in boxes made for nuts and bolts that are made in the coastal Israeli city Holon.

"They're perfect for what we do and each coin is in an envelope," explains Ariel matter-of-factly.

The IAA collection spans from the beginning of coinage at the end of the 7th century BCE until today - with some registered coins dating to the 1970s and 1980s. The bulk of the coins date to the Hellenistic-Seleucid-Hasmonean period of the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE, and there's a second peak in the 4th and 5th centuries CE, the early Byzantine period, says Ariel.

The coins in the Mandate period collection were largely purchased, a practice discontinued by the State of Israel.

"The Mandate authorities had a budget to buy coins. They went to the Old City and they would buy beautiful coins for very cheap back then. The State of Israel does not have any budget to buy coins, which I think is terrific: We have concentrated on working on coins from excavations as they have much more value because you can learn from the strata that the coins are found in, we learn from the objects found with the coins, and we're able to date the archaeological excavations and also learn about coin currency. These are things you cannot learn from purchased coins," he says.

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WATCH: Israel Antiquities Authority coin head displays treasures from the vault(https://www.timesofisrael.com/watch-israel-antiquities-authority-coin-head-displays-treasures-from-the-vault/)