PHILISTIA. Gaza. Circa 420-350 BCE. Rbʾ Šql = Drachm (Silver, 15 mm, 3.78 g, 6 h). Lion to right, attacking a bull collapsing to left; below, uncertain symbol (shrimp to right?); all within guilloche-pattern circular border. Rev. Forepart of a horse right, forelock tied up with a ribbon into an upright tuft; in upper left field, 𐡏𐡆 (ʿZ in Aramaic); all within dotted square border within incuse square. BMC Palestine pl. XIX, 15 (same dies). Gitler & Tal VI.9Db (this coin). Hendin -. Jeselsohn 132 (same obverse die). Shoshana - Sofaer -. Extremely rare, arguably the finest of just five known examples of this wonderful issue. Beautifully toned and with highly interesting iconography. Struck from the usual worn obverse die, otherwise, extremely fine.



Finds such as the famous Asyut Hoard show that large quantities of northern Greek and Thraco-Macedonian silver reached the eastern Mediterranean. This movement of silver should probably be seen, at least in part, in connection with Achaemenid control over Thrace and northern Greece from the reign of Dareios I onward; tribute payments, military requirements, and trade relations are also likely to have played an important role. The gravitational pull of the vast Achaemenid Empire was undoubtedly considerable in this respect.

For the present coin, this is significant because the obverse, showing a lion bringing down a bull, clearly draws on Akanthian prototypes, examples of which were also prominently represented in the Asyut Hoard (153-193). This supports a dating to the late 5th century BCE and at the same time points to the close connections of the Philistian coastal cities with the Aegean world.

It is more difficult to determine the source of inspiration for the horse protome on the reverse. In Greek coinage, the horse-protome motif is widespread, occurring from Thessaly through Thrace to Asia Minor. At the same time, the rendering of the forelock tied up into a topknot finds particularly close parallels in Achaemenid art, for example on the reliefs of the Apadana at Persepolis and on Achaemenid horse-protome rhyta (see Gitler, Achaemenid, pl. III, 16). The coin thus combines elements from different pictorial traditions in a manner characteristic of early Philistian silver coinage.