THE JUDAS COIN! Lebanon, Phoenicia, Tyre. 126/5 BC-65 AD. Tetradrachm/Shekel (10.6 gm). Dated year 38 (89/88 BC). Laureate head of Melkart right / 'TΥΡIOΥ IEΠΑΣ KAI AΣΥΛΟΥ', eagle standing left on prow; club to left, Phoenician letter between legs, monogram to right. BMC Phoenicia pg. 242, 132. Superb Coin.

The word used in Matthew 26:15 (arguria) simply means "silver coins" and scholars disagree on the type of coins that would have been used. Donald Wiseman suggests two possibilities. They could have been tetradrachms of Tyre, usually referred to as Tyrian shekels (about 0.5 troy ounces), or staters from Antioch, which bore the head of Augustus. Alternatively, they could have been Ptolemaic tetradrachms.

A drachma was approximately a day's pay for a skilled laborer. So 30 pieces of silver, at four drachmas each, would roughly be comparable to four months' wages.

In the medieval period some religious institutions displayed ancient Greek coins of the island of Rhodes as specimens of the Thirty Pieces of Silver. The obverses of these coins showed a facing head of the sun god Helios, with rays projecting around the upper part of it. These rays were interpreted as a representation of the Crown of Thorns.