AN ANCIENT HALF-SHEKEL COIN has been discovered in Jerusalem - an interesting cosmic synchronicity with this year's Purim festival:

Second Temple Half-Shekel Found in Jerusalem Dig

by Ezra HaLevi

(IsraelNN.com) A half-shekel coin from the Second Temple was found in excavations in the City of David, just below and east of Jerusalem’s Old City. The upcoming Purim festival features the half-shekel prominently in its observance.

The ancient silver coin was discovered in an archaeological excavation that is being conducted in the main Second Temple-era drainage channel of Jerusalem. The foreign coin is of the denomination used during the turbulent Second Temple period to pay the Biblical half-shekel head-tax.

This coming Thursday night (Saturday night for Jerusalemites), before reading the Megillah (Scroll) of Esther, Jews worldwide will contribute a sum of money to charity in remembrance of that half-shekel command.

“Just like today when coins sometimes fall from our pockets and roll into drainage openings at the side of the street, that’s how it was some two thousand years ago – a man was on his way to the Temple and the shekel which he intended to use for paying the half shekel head-tax found its way into the drainage channel,” theorized archaeologist Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

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UPDATE AND CORRECTION: It appears that it is a full shekel coin, not a half. Joseph I. Lauer e-mails on his list:

Although the article refers to the coin found in the excavations in the City of David as a half-shekel, the previously circulated IAA report on the discovery stated, "This coin is a shekel denomination that was customarily used to pay a half shekel head-tax in the Second Temple period."

In addition, Jack Kilmon wrote on the biblical-studies list that "The Tyrian tetradrachm was close, monetarily, to the shekel .... When this tetradrachm/shekel was given to the money changer it was equivalent to TWO tax offerings so had to be presented with 2 kalbonot (equiv. 2 denarii) as a fee in order to get back 1/2 shekel in change or pay for two. 2 kalbonot was the equivalent of 11 prutot." See http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biblical-studies/message/16779

The IAA report is here.