1 Sheqel Herodion

Issued as part of Israel's "Holyland Sites" commemorative series, this coin marks the fortress-palace built by Herod the Great atop an artificial hill in the Judean Desert — a site Herod also chose as his own tomb. Excavations led by Yigael Yadin and later Ehud Netzer had been bringing Herodion to wider archaeological attention through the 1970s and early 1980s, lending the subject particular currency at the time of striking. Netzer would not confirm Herod's actual burial site there until 2007.