Across more than two millennia, separated by oceans and empires, two small copper coins have told a remarkably similar story about money, value, and what society chooses to preserve even when economics says otherwise. The ancient Jewish prutah of Hasmonean Judaea and the modern American penny share far more than their diminutive size and copper heritage; they reflect timeless tensions between intrinsic value, symbolic meaning, and practical utility.For more on the prutah and the half-prutah (the lepton or "widow's mite"), see here and links.[...]
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