Howard and Jochen: Yes, in fairly recent times in English-speaking lands we did have that kind of beehive (as apparently they
had them in Thrace/Bulgaria). My childhood Mother
Goose rhymes book
had one illstrated. Though ready-made boxes are the rule today, to make one's own the farmer or
his wife would do well to resort to basketry, I think. Maybe daubed with some clay? But I never believed that there would be one on a coin, irrespective of comparable shapes.
Frank: I never thought of Bethlehem! I only thought how many synagogues are Beth El and, after all, in school one learns that 'alphabet'
comes from aleph and beth (then gimel). As a trained classicist, now over 70, I have
had plenty of time to dabble in my colleagues' specialties, and my age entails my having read up on different generations' ideas. That is all. And I was thinking that aniconic cult objects may be as old as elementary numina. What is interesting is their survival, and that a naughty boy like
Elagabalus could be so involved with one of them. Also, my own specialty is early Greek art, 7th-century, which has entailed also the products that those 'Phoenicians' traded (some
French scholars believe that Phoenicians were not really a distinct people, but only a Greek collective term for coastal Semitic-language traders; I don't know whether that idea is defensible). Personally, if there is anything I 'worship', it is probably, say, string theory (though my math is not adequate to study it properly).
Yes, I was recalling Etruscan cippi, but I couldn't figure out how they fit this picture, and I haven't done any basic research on them. I wondered whether suchlike are common in Anatolia--as indeed the Perge coins suggest. It is
good to see the actual images of the Perge coins; thank you.
Pat L.