SAMARIA. Anepigraphic types with Achaemenid and regional influences. Circa 400-332 BCE. Half Mʿh = Hemiobol (Silver, 7 mm, 0.23 g, 12 h). Janiform bearded male head. Rev. Five Athenian-style coins with owls in a flower-like arrangement. CSC 206. Hendin -. Jeselsohn 246. Gitler, Johananoff, Lichtenberger & Tal, Reflexivity, pl. 2, 18 = Meshorer & Qedar pl. 21, 142 (this coin) = Wyssmann p. 291, MQ 142f. (this coin). NH -. Shoshana -. Sofaer 186. Very rare and in exceptional condition for the issue, perhaps the finest known example. Beautifully toned, with the owls on the reverse unusually sharp and well defined. Very minor area of weakness on the obverse, otherwise, about extremely fine.



This extraordinary issue is apparently unique among ancient coin types in depicting recognizable coins as its principal reverse design, apart from more schematic representations on Roman coins, where money sometimes appears as small pellets poured by Liberalitas from a cornucopiae or as heaps at the feet of Moneta. The reverse shows five owl-type silver coins arranged in a small flower-like pile. Although the image clearly evokes the famous Athenian owl, the coins need not be understood as actual Athenian tetradrachms: in the southern Levant, owl types in the Athenian tradition were widely adopted and adapted, and large denominations on the Attic standard could be understood locally as shekels (see lots 150-151 below). The type also invites comparison with the modern Greek one-euro coin, which likewise reproduces the owl motif of the classical Athenian tetradrachm.

In his article 'Coinage for Redeeming the Firstborn: an Ancient and Modern Jewish Ritual,' The Celator, December 2002, pp. 14-22, Ronn Berrol suggested that the striking number five may allude to the Pidyon ha-Ben ceremony. Pidyon ha-Ben, Hebrew for 'redemption of the son,' is the Jewish rite by which a firstborn male child is redeemed through a payment to a Kohen, a member of the priestly line. The religious basis for the rite lies in the biblical notion that the firstborn belongs in a special sense to God. In the words of the Authorized Version, Ex 13:2 states: 'Sanctify unto me all the firstborn, whatsoever openeth the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and of beast: it is mine.' The monetary aspect is made explicit in Num 18:15-16: 'nevertheless the firstborn of man shalt thou surely redeem,' and those to be redeemed 'from a month old' are to be redeemed 'for the money of five shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary.' Num 3:47-48 similarly prescribes 'five shekels apiece' and orders that the redemption money be given 'unto Aaron and to his sons.'

Berrol’s interpretation is therefore highly attractive: the reverse does not merely show money, but precisely five silver coins – the same number as the five silver shekels prescribed in the biblical tradition for the redemption of the firstborn. The Samaritan-Levantine context of the issue is also significant, since Jews and Samaritans alike were bound to Pentateuchal traditions in which the sanctification and redemption of the firstborn were deeply rooted. Nor does the use of the owl type weaken the argument. In the fourth-century Levant, the Athenian owl had long since become more than a specifically Athenian civic badge: it was a widely understood monetary image, capable of being translated into local coinages and local weight denominations.

Nevertheless, the interpretation must remain cautious. The coin bears no inscription explicitly referring to the firstborn, to a Kohen, to Aaron, or to the act of redemption, and the five coins cannot be identified securely as the 'five shekels' of the biblical text. The number five may therefore have carried a religious meaning, but it could equally allude to a treasure, a payment, commerce, tribute, or the special authority of owl-type silver in the eastern Mediterranean. It is precisely this ambiguity that makes the type so fascinating: the reverse shows coins on a coin – and perhaps even money as the medium of a specific religious act.