PHILISTIA. Central Mint. Athenian-styled, circa 420-350 BCE. Rbʾ Šql = Drachm (Silver, 14 mm, 3.38 g, 3 h). Complex hybrid janiform head, with male (?) head facing and female head to right, surmounted by a long-tailed crouching lion to right with reverted head and open jaws; both human heads wearing pearl necklaces; all within circular guilloche-pattern border. Rev. Head of Athena to right, wearing crested Attic helmet decorated with three olive leaves and palmette; in three of the corners, uncertain symbols; all within square guilloche-pattern border within incuse square. Gitler & Tal XIV.35Da = Mildenberg, Imagery, pl. III, 52 = Mildenberg, Palästina, pl. LIX, 90 (this coin). Hendin 6016 (same dies). Jeselsohn 266 = Mildenberg, Vestigia, pl. XXVI, 6 = Shoshana I 20008 (same dies). Leu Web Auction 30 (2024), 1097 (same dies). Sofaer -. Extremely rare, and by far the finest of just six known examples. A spectacular and iconic coin, certainly the most impressive Philistian drachm known. Attractively toned, perfectly centered and boldly struck on excellent metal; a masterpiece of Levantine art. Test cut on the reverse, otherwise, extremely fine.



On this magnificent drachm, or rbʿ šql, the Attic head of Athena appears on the reverse, while the obverse bears an impressive hybrid janiform head. Its intricate and complex iconography is difficult to unravel. Two human faces are clearly visible: a profile face looking right and a frontal face turned toward the viewer. Above them is a long-tailed lion crouching right, with head reverted and jaws open, serving as a headdress. Gitler and Tal also identify a third face looking right between the two heads.

Numerous parallels for a janiform head composed of a profile face and a frontal face can be found in Philistian coinage, for example lots 53-54 above; the frontal face also recalls the male three-quarter portraits on lots 58-59. Janiform heads need not be read only in the narrow temporal sense later associated with the Roman Janus. More broadly, the form lends itself to ideas of duality, liminality, heightened vigilance, and the fusion of opposing or complementary elements.

In Philistian coinage, where Greek, local and Near Eastern visual traditions are often combined with remarkable freedom, such heads could serve as particularly powerful images of hybrid identity. This applies not only to male-female combinations, but also to types with two male faces, in which the same sense of doubling, ambiguity and intensified presence is preserved. In the present piece, the direct gaze of the frontal face heightens this effect and gives the image a distinctly apotropaic quality: the frontal face does not merely look at the viewer; it confronts the viewer directly. 'I see you' – this unspoken message of the image combines vigilance, protection, strength and the power to ward off harm.

Gitler and Tal interpret the head as a combination of a female face to right and a male frontal face. However, the gender attribution of unbearded Philistian faces is notoriously difficult, and the frontal face might also be understood as a frontal rendering of an Athena-like female figure. The two authors further identify, between the two faces, the mouth and nose of another face, which – together with the left eye of the frontal face – would form a third profile looking right (Gitler & Tal pp. 298-299). On closer inspection, however, the supposed nose seems to point left rather than right, so it remains uncertain whether the die-engraver actually intended a third face.

The hybrid head is surmounted by a long-tailed lion crouching right, with head reverted and jaws open. Animal headdresses are well attested in ancient art, for example in the lion-skin headdress of Herakles or the elephant-scalp headdresses of various Hellenistic kings. In those cases, however, the animal is present as a trophy or skin; on our coin, by contrast, a living, aggressively animated lion appears, probably further emphasizing the martial and protective power of the hybrid being. Iconographically closer are the frontal Bes heads, each adorned with a lion protome (Gitler & Tal XVIII.8Dc = lot 102 below). Interestingly, these pieces likewise show on the reverse a hybrid head composed of a female face in profile to right and a frontal bearded male face. The close association between Bes and the lion is also indicated by the drachm Gitler & Tal XVIII.5D, whose obverse shows a hybrid head composed of a bearded male head to right and a frontal female or youthful male head, while the reverse shows Bes standing frontally beside an attacking lion. A parallel may also be drawn with Gitler & Tal XVI.21Da (= lot 86 below), which shows a janiform hybrid head composed of a youthful male (?) head to right and a roaring lion’s head to left. A further, more distant comparison is the Oxus aigrette from the Oxus Treasure, an Achaemenid gold ornament in the form of a recumbent lion-griffin with wings, horns and long pointed ears (BM 123924), probably worn in the hair or on a cap.

Finally, the Philistian artist seems to have deliberately played with the Athenian model. While the reverse shows a classical Athena with Attic helmet and crest, whose profile appears closely related to the right-facing face on the obverse, the obverse presents a powerful, imaginative and thoroughly local hybrid creature in which Greek, Achaemenid and Levantine elements are fused. The coin thus shows, in the truest sense, two sides of the same coin: on one side the high classical Athena, one of the most famous profile images of the ancient world; on the other, a characteristically Philistian creation of great iconographic complexity and apotropaic force.