PHILISTIA. Central Mint. Athenian-styled, circa 420-350 BCE. Mʿh = Obol (Silver, 11 mm, 0.66 g, 12 h). Bearded male head (Themistokles?) to right, in the style of Athena, wearing crested Attic helmet decorated with three olive leaves and palmette. Rev. Two opposed seated lions, owls concealed within their bodies; below, two opposed dolphins; all within dotted square border within incuse square. Gitler & Tal XIII.22Oa (this coin). Hendin -. Jeselsohn 230-231 (same dies). Mildenberg, Vestigia, pl. XXVI, 8 (same dies). Shoshana - Sofaer -. Very rare and of great interest, with a beautiful reverse. Struck from a somewhat worn obverse die, otherwise, good very fine.



Gitler and Tal describe this obverse as a 'bearded helmeted head of Athena'. Bearded heads are, of course, widespread in Philistian coinage, but they normally do not wear helmets. One might therefore be tempted to see it as one of the iconographic hybrid forms so characteristic of Philistian coinage. Greek coinage, however, offers a potentially closer parallel: the coinage struck at Magnesia on the Maeander by the famous Athenian naval commander Themistokles. As von Mosch has recently argued, the depictions of a bearded man wearing an Attic helmet on these coins are best understood as portraits (Mosch 2022). Their resemblance to the bearded male head on our coin is sufficiently close that, although direct influence cannot be demonstrated, the possibility should at least be considered (Mosch 2022, p. 27).

More recently, Mosch has also shown that the coinage of the Lykomidai was far more complex and extensive than previously assumed (Mosch 2025). The close connections between Achaemenid western Asia Minor and the Levant are further illustrated by the coinage of Tissaphernes, satrap of Lydia and Ionia, at Dora (Leu 19 (2025), 96). It is therefore possible that the coinage of Themistokles, an Achaemenid client dynast, was known in Philistia and may have influenced the depiction on our coin.