PHILISTIA. Central Mint. Philistian-styled, circa 420-350 BCE. Rbʾ Šql = Drachm (Silver, 16 mm, 3.36 g, 9 h). Male (?) head to right, wearing laureate helmet; on cheek, 𐡁 (B in retrograde Aramaic); all within circular guilloche-pattern border. Rev. Ibex kneeling right, head turned back to left, an owl concealed within its body; above, 𐡇𐡁𐡃𐡀 (ḤBDʾ in Aramaic); all within square guilloche-pattern border within incuse square. Gitler & Tal XX.13Da (this coin). Hendin -. Jeselsohn 335 (same dies). Shoshana -. Sofaer -. Extremely rare. Somewhat rough and with a test cut on the reverse, otherwise, good very fine.



The obverse of this impressive drachm recalls lots 66 and 100 above. Here too, the head appears to be wearing a helmet, decorated with a laurel wreath as on lot 66. The reverse, on the other hand, harkens back to the coinage of Kelenderis in Cilicia, whose coat of arms was a kneeling he-goat. A charming detail in the rendering of the he-goat, or ibex, as Gitler & Tal call it, is the appearance of an owl's head concealed on its right shoulder - another reference to the Athenian silver coinage that dominated international trade in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE.