Obol

Obverse description	Bust of Athena in right profile, wearing a crested Attic helmet adorned with decorative relief work along the bowl and crest base. The facial features are rendered in a stylized Archaic-to-Classical transitional manner, with a prominent eye, defined cheekbone, and visible neckguard of the helmet. The overall style reflects the strong Athenian iconographic influence prevalent in Philistian coinage of the late fifth to early fourth century BC. The flan is irregular and slightly squared at the edges, typical of the hammered small silver issues of this region.
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Edge	Plain
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Additional information	Philistian coinage of the fourth century BC presents persistent attribution difficulties, and this piece is no exception. The cities of Gaza, Ashkelon, and their neighbors all struck small silver in this period, drawing heavily on Athenian and Egypto-Phoenician visual sources while producing coins that resist clean civic assignment. Gitler and Tal's corpus remains the primary taxonomic framework, though new hoards continue to complicate boundaries between issues. Obols of this weight class circulated in a coastal trading zone that moved grain, textiles, and luxury goods between Egypt and the Levant. The denomination was working money.