The round weight, made of limestone, turned up as excavated material from an IAA dig near Wilson's Arch was being sifted.

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The IAA is cooperating with the Western Wall Heritage Foundation on the excavation, which is part of the preparatory work in plans to build a new visitors' entrance to the Western Wall tunnels.

Dr. Barak Monnickendam-Givon and Tehillah Lieberman, who are overseeing the dig for the IAA, pointed out that the weight is rounded at one end with a flat bottom. The rounded end is incised with a sign that resembles the Hebrew letter Ayin, an Egyptian symbol that represents the word "shekel." Next to the symbol, they said, are two lines, indicating that this object is a double weight.

"In this period, silver coins were not used, so a precise measurement played a very important role in trade. Men and women would carry weights like this around, would go out shopping her in ancient Jerusalem 2,700 years ago. They used it to weight out precise amounts of spices or food," the archaeologists explained.

Earlier finds have established that the weight of a single shekel was 11.5 grams (0.4 ounces), so a double shekel should weigh 23 grams – which the newly-discovered weight does.

Director of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation Mordchai Eliav said, "How exciting, in the month of Tishrei, whose symbol is the scales of justice, to find a souvenir from the First Temple period.

"At this time, when visits to the Western Wall are so restricted due to the COVID pandemic, this discovery strengthens the eternal connection between the Jewish nation, Jerusalem, and the Western Wall while offering us all encouragement," Eliav said.

Part of this article is reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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The 3,000-year-old weight, dated from the 10th century BCE to 586 BCE, was discovered in an archaeological dig at the foot of Robinson's Arch at the Western Wall.

The "beka" weight was used to examine the half-shekel donation given by Jews for maintenance of the Temple and as a census.

As written in the Book of Exodus: "One beka per head; [that is] half a shekel, according to the holy shekel, for each one who goes through the counting, from twenty years old and upward, for six hundred three thousand, five hundred and fifty [people]."

The biblical shekel weighed almost 0.4 ounces.

"When the half-shekel tax was brought to the Temple during the First Temple period, there were no coins, so they used silver ingots. In order to calculate the weight of these silver pieces they would put them on one side of the scales and on the other side they placed the beka weight," explained Eli Shukron, who directed the excavations on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

"The beka was equivalent to the half-shekel, which every person from the age of 20 years and up was required to bring to the Temple," he continued.

"Beka weights from the First Temple period are rare; however this weight is even rarer because the inscription on it is written in mirror script and the letters are engraved from left to right instead of right to left," added Shukron. "It can therefore be concluded that the artist who engraved the inscription on the weight specialized in engraving seals, since seals were always written in mirror script so that once stamped the inscription would appear in the regular legible script."

The artifact will be on display to the public in Emek Tzurim National Park during Hanukkah, according to the City of David Foundation.

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