Obol

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.