PHILISTIA. Central Mint. Philistian-styled, circa 420-350 BCE. Half Mʿh = Hemiobol (Silver, 7 mm, 0.24 g, 6 h). Bearded male head to right, wearing beaded necklace and with his hair gathered high on the head and secured by a lion-headed, rhyton-shaped ornament. Rev. Forepart of a horse right, forelock tied up with a ribbon into an upright tuft; in upper left field, 𐡔 (Š in Aramaic); all within dotted square border within incuse square. Gitler & Tal -. Gitler & Tal, Unrecorded, pl. 6, 10 = Gitler & Tal, Reclassifying, p. 16, 2 and Fig. 7 (same dies). Hendin -. Jeselsohn 341 (same dies). Shoshana -. Sofaer -. Extremely rare, apparently the third known example. Beautifully toned and very well preserved. The obverse struck slightly off center and with light roughness, otherwise, extremely fine.



Gitler and Tal initially attributed this type to Samaria in 2006, but revised the attribution to Philistia in 2016 in light of the circumstances of its discovery. This revised attribution is undoubtedly correct. The superb head on the obverse finds close parallels among the coins in lots 89-90 above, which have likewise been reassigned to Philistia. We have therefore placed the present coin in the same section.

This stylistic affinity is considerably closer than the link proposed in the catalogue of the Jeselsohn Collection between the reverse of the present issue and Gitler and Tal, type XXII. Indeed, the horse protome on our coin is much more closely paralleled on coins from Gaza; cf. lots 31-37 above.