Drachm

Gaza sat at the southwestern terminus of the overland spice and incense routes connecting Arabia and the Levant to Egypt and the Mediterranean, and its fourth-century civic coinage reflects that commercial weight. These Philisto-Arabian drachms — struck under Achaemenid overlordship but circulated by local mercantile and administrative networks — were not imperial issues. They were trade instruments, produced to facilitate the same caravan economy that made Gaza one of the wealthiest cities on the eastern Mediterranean rim. Gitler and Tal's typology has brought meaningful order to what was long a chaotic series.