Catalog
Drachm
| Issuer | Uncertain Philistian city (Cities of Philistia) |
|---|---|
| Year | 450 BC - 333 BC |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Obverse description | Bearded male head facing left in high relief, rendered in the Egypto-Persian artistic tradition characteristic of Philistian coinage. The face displays strongly defined features including a prominent nose, fleshy lips, and a full, striated beard with incised linear detailing. A round earring is visible at the ear, and a grape cluster or similarly granular vegetal element appears behind the head in the right field, suggesting possible Dionysiac or Near Eastern iconographic influence. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | A Phoenician palmette — also identified as a paradise flower — depicted in bold relief at the centre of the field, with symmetrical volute scrolls flanking the base and a budding floral crown at the apex. The motif rests on a low stepped base or platform, rendered within a dotted border square, itself set within a shallow incuse square formed by the hammered die technique. The overall composition is characteristic of the floral and vegetal reverse types common to Persian-period Philistian civic coinage. |
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| Additional information |
The Philistian city coinages of the fifth and fourth centuries BC remain among the least-understood series in ancient numismatics — minting authority, civic attribution, and even the identities of the issuing cities are actively contested. Gitler and Tal's landmark cataloguing work, published in 2006, brought systematic order to a series previously scattered across auction records and museum drawers with little coherent classification. Even so, XVII.2D sits in a group where city attribution remains genuinely open.
Production ceased abruptly with Alexander's campaigns through the Levant in 332 BC.