PHILISTIA. Central Mint. Philistian-styled, circa 420-350 BCE. Rbʾ Šql = Drachm (Silver, 15 mm, 3.56 g, 3 h). Bearded male head to right within circular guilloche-pattern border. Rev. Man standing right, carrying a recumbent calf right across his shoulders and placing his right hand on the back of another calf walking right, an owl concealed within the latter’s body; before, branch; all within square guilloche-pattern border within incuse square. Gitler & Tal XXVI.1Db (this coin). Hendin -. Jeselsohn -. Mildenberg, Imagery, pl. III, 53 (same dies). Shoshana -. Sofaer -. Extremely rare. Attractively toned and with a very interesting reverse. The obverse struck somewhat off center and with the usual test cut on the reverse, otherwise, very fine.



Gitler & Tal describe the figure on the reverse as a moschophoros, or calf-bearer, a figure belonging to the broader tradition of animal-bearers in ancient art. The most famous example of this type is the so-called ‘Calf-Bearer’ from Athens, an archaic statue of circa 570–560 BCE showing a man carrying a calf on his shoulders as an offering to Athena. The animal at the calf-bearer’s feet on the present coin, however, is interpreted by Gitler & Tal as a dog. Yet the close resemblance between the head of the calf carried on the shoulders and the head of the supposed ‘dog’ strongly suggests that the animal at the figure’s feet is also a calf rather than a dog (see also the piece sold in Classical Numismatic Group 120, 2022, 481).

If the animal at the figure’s feet is indeed a second calf rather than a dog, the scene takes on a more explicitly sacrificial character: it would show a figure bringing or presenting calves for sacrifice. While rooted in the broader Eastern Mediterranean tradition of animal-offering imagery, the motif also resonates in the southern Levant, where cattle, especially calves and bulls, played an important role in sacrificial practice, as reflected, for example, in biblical texts. This makes the type a particularly interesting Philistian adaptation of a widely recognizable sacrificial image.