Catalog
Shekel Ashqelon
| Issuer | Ashkelon |
|---|---|
| Year | 425 BC - 400 BC |
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| Composition | Silver |
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| Obverse description | Head of Athena facing right, wearing a crested Attic helmet decorated with a palmette and scroll motif at the base; the helmet visor is raised, revealing a finely detailed female visage with almond-shaped eye. The hair is rendered in tight curls along the forehead and gathered beneath the helmet, with beaded earring visible below the cheek guard. The style closely imitates the Athenian tetradrachm prototype of the late fifth century BC, reflecting the widespread Philistian adoption of Athenian coin types. |
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| Reverse description | Owl standing facing with spread wings, rendered in a distinctly archaic Philistian style derived from the Athenian tetradrachm type but with notably stylized, outstretched wings rather than the folded wings of the Athenian prototype. An olive sprig and crescent appear to the upper left of the owl, and a partial Aramaic or Hebrew letter appears to the upper right. The design is set within an incuse square border, characteristic of early coin production at Ashkelon. The Hebrew letter aleph (א) in the field serves as an abbreviation for Ashkelon. |
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| Additional information |
Ashkelon operated as a Philistine-rooted Phoenician port city under loose Achaemenid Persian oversight during this period, and its civic coinage — including this shekel — reflects that hybrid political reality. The city retained enough autonomy to strike its own silver, drawing on Attic weight standards that dominated eastern Mediterranean trade rather than the Persian siglos system, a deliberate commercial choice that kept Ashkelon's merchants competitive in Aegean markets.
Hendin 1004 is among the scarcer issues in the southern Levantine series.