PHILISTIA. Gaza. Circa 420-350 BCE. Rbʾ Šql = Drachm (Silver, 16 mm, 3.68 g, 2 h). Janiform bearded male head, wearing pearl necklace. Rev. Two opposed griffin-like creatures with elongated, wing-like necks ending in bovine heads; facing female head between them; above, 𐡏𐡆 (ʿZ in Aramaic); all within guilloche-patterned square border within incuse square. Gitler & Tal VI.16Db corr. (this coin, but misdescribed as double struck). Gitler, Johananoff and Tal, Overstrikes, Fig. 6, VI.16Db (this coin). Hendin 6009. Jeselsohn 144. Mildenberg, Vestigia, pl. XXV, 34 (with ethnic). Shoshana -. Sofaer 17. Very rare as a type, and of outstanding importance as this unique overstrike. Darkly toned. Somewhat rough and with traces of overstriking, otherwise, very fine.



When first published, our piece was described as ‘double struck’, and the obverse was illustrated upside down, causing the janiform bearded male head to appear vertically oriented. Closer inspection, however, shows that the coin was not double struck, but clearly overstruck. On the obverse, above the janiform male head, the face of a woman looking upwards is visible; on the reverse, a bearded head can be made out on the right. These traces belong to the obverse and reverse of an earlier coin, namely Gitler & Tal XVI.11D.

This anepigraphic type shows a male head on the obverse and a female head on the reverse. Although the overstrike makes die comparison difficult, the undertype nevertheless appears to have been struck from the same dies as Gitler & Tal XVI.11Da. This important discovery now allows this earlier anonymous Philistian coinage to be linked with the later coinage of Gaza, thereby providing an important relative chronology. The coin will shortly be republished and discussed in a forthcoming study of overstrikes by H. Gitler, M. Johananoff, and O. Tal.