Drachm

Gaza sat at the southern end of the Levantine coastal route — the road Egyptian armies, Phoenician traders, and Persian administrators all depended on — and its fourth-century civic coinage reflects that position directly. The city's drachms were struck under Achaemenid suzerainty but circulated as a local commercial currency, facilitating trade at a port the Persians never fully controlled culturally. Gaza was the last city to hold out against Alexander in 332 BC, enduring a two-month siege before its governor Batis was reportedly dragged to death behind a chariot in deliberate imitation of Achilles.

The Gitler/Tal reference classifies these pieces within a tightly argued sequence of Philisto-Arabian issues where die links between Gaza and neighboring mints complicate clean attribution.