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Drachm
| Issuer | Uncertain Philistian city (Cities of Philistia) |
|---|---|
| Year | 450 BC - 333 BC |
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| Currency | Drachm |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Bearded male head facing right, rendered in the Greco-Persian artistic tradition. The head is shown in profile with strong facial features including a prominent eye, defined beard, and what appears to be a crested helmet or headdress with dotted decoration. The die work reflects the influence of Athenian and Achaemenid coinage styles characteristic of Philistian silver issues of the fifth and fourth centuries BC. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | A paradise flower or Phoenician palmette occupies the central field, flanked within the volutes by two confronted birds facing one another (vis-à-vis). Below the palmette, a dolphin is depicted swimming to the right. The entire design is enclosed within a dotted square border, itself set within an incuse square, a hallmark compositional arrangement of Philistian coinage of the Persian period. |
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| Additional information |
The Philistian coinage tradition emerged under Achaemenid administrative pressure in the fifth and fourth centuries BC, with local cities producing silver fractions to meet tax obligations and facilitate trade within the satrapy of Abar Nahara. The specific issuing city behind this type remains unresolved — Gitler and Tal's exhaustive 2006 corpus identified over a dozen distinct municipal series, yet several groups still resist firm attribution.
Type XVII.6D places this piece among a cluster of issues drawing heavily on Athenian and Egyptian iconographic borrowings, reflecting the Mediterranean commercial networks that ran through Gaza and Ashkelon in this period. Persian administration ended abruptly with Alexander's Levantine campaign of 332 BC, which severed these minting traditions almost overnight.