An interesting coin

[Aarmale]

I hope this is the right place for me to post this.
I just want to show an interesting Samaritan coin.


The obverse is a "bearded, triple-faced head".
The reverse is what makes this coin interesting.  The reverse is a pile of 5 Athenian Owl coins.  CNG wrtes about one of the coins they sold "The reverse concept is nearly unique in ancient numismatics, with its clear representation of the reverses of five Athenian coins. The only comparable type of a 'coin on coin' type that we know of is the Roman Republican denarius of L. Julius Bursio with a subsidiary symbol of two Roman asses".

Just wanted to share,

Aarmale

[areich]

Thanks for sharing, an amazing coin I didn't know about.

[Potator II]

Amazing and very interesting

Thanks
Potator

[Lloyd Taylor]

Three heads and five owls for the price of one coin! That makes for very efficient collecting..... amazing!

[Andrew McCabe]

Both the obverse and reverse are remarkably interesting. Whilst the reverse with its pile of 5 athenian tetradrachms is extraordinary, the obverse triple-facing-head is also a great oddity. I guess it is a rare and expensive piece? Or not?

[Lloyd Taylor]

...I guess it is a rare and expensive piece? Or not?

Yes on both counts. A rather expensive little obol...[LINK REMOVED BY ADMIN]

The lower one imaged described by CNG as
Sold For $1265. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.    

SAMARIA. Circa 375-333 BCE. AR Obol (0.51 gm). Bearded, triple-faced head / Pile of five Athenian tetradrachms; all in dotted incuse. Meshorer & Qedar 141. VF, dark toning. Rare. ($750)

The obverse of this coin is derived from obols of Cilicia (SNG Levante 201). An example in Good VF sold for sf 2200 in Sternberg XXXIV (22-23 October 1998), lot 195.

The reverse concept is nearly unique in ancient numismatics, with its clear representation of the reverses of five Athenian coins. The only comparable type of a 'coin on coin' type that we know of is the Roman Republican denarius of L. Julius Bursio with a subsidiary symbol of two Roman asses (see Classical Numismatic Group 38, lot 793).

Ronn Berrol, in "Coinage for Redeeming the Firstborn: an Ancient and Modern Jewish Ritual," The Celator, December 2002, pp.14-22, postulates a connection with the Pidyon Ha-Ben ceremony, wherein a Jewish family would pay five shekels to redeem a first-born son, who was to be consecrated to the priesthood.

[Lloyd Taylor]

Anyone with any idea as to the symbolism attached to the triple head and stack of five coins?  If it is as suggested in the last lines of the CNG description, then why on an obol and why three heads ? Also a "Pile of five Athenian tetradrachms" is the same as five shekels?

[Aarmale]

The Samaritans copied many images from other coins circulating in the Levant.  Any other "three faced" coins around from the fourth century BCE?

[Robert_Brenchley]

The shekel was originally a weight, but once coinage developed the tetradrachm was accepted, hence the 'shekel of Tyre', which is in fact a tet. Athenian tets were 'pure' silver (ie as pure as practical given the available technology), so they would have been acceptable; the restriction to Tyrian silver for the Temple tax came about because of the debasement of the other tets. The same rule would have applied here.

The Pidyon ha-Ben is explained here: http://www.aish.com/jl/l/48964996.html ; the Torah passage relating to the five shekels is Numbers 18:15-16: The first issue of the womb of all creatures, human and animal, which is offered to the LORD, shall be yours; but the firstborn of human beings you shall redeem, and the firstborn of unclean animals you shall redeem. Their redemption price, reckoned from one month of age, you shall fix at five shekels of silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary (that is, twenty gerahs).

The five tetradrachms would have to be pure silver, otherwise you'd be shortchanging the Temple, which would have been extremely sinful! Athenian tets would no doubt have been acceptable, and as the common trade coinage - Samaria, which was of course an Israelite kingdom, profited from trade routes from the Mediterranean to points east - they'd have been a perfectly normal offering.

[commodus]

An extraordinary coin.

The concept reminds me a bit of the later Janiform heads of certain Graeco-Roman (Sicily, Macedon, Thessalonica...), and Roman Republican coinage (except that none of them have a facing aspect) and even more so of the Trinitarian representation on this much later Orthodox Christian icon.

[Aarmale]

I'm critical of the "pidyon ha-ben" theory, because in the early coinage of Samaria (and Yehud Medinata) didn't depict any really "Jewish" things.  One could argue the the BM Yehud drachm does, but the seated being isn't an original Jewish thing or idea, if it even does represent divinity.  What i'm trying to say is that no Jewish activities were ever depicted on coins by either the Jews or the Samaritans.
Also, what validity does "buying your child" have to do with Samaritan coinage?  What happened that caused them to depict the pidyon?
I really doesn't know though, because I haven't read the article.  The author, Ronn Berrol, I think goes by "Ibex-coins" on the boards.

Regards,
Aarmale

EDIT: I have added pictures of the visible owls on the two coins I posted earlier.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Since the Numbers passage actually refers to something else, which has been reinterpreted, it may well be that this practice doesn't go back to the period when the books were written. It could easily be quite late. You're perfectly correct that there's nothing specifically 'Jewish' on this coinage, and we shouldn't really expect there to be. Judaism is a late development from ancient Israelite religion. The coinage is quite free in its portrayal of deities like Athena and Bes, and that's definitely not Jewish! There's very little known about Israelite religion in the Persian period, and the Yehud coinage is evidence that religious exclusivism may have taken a while to become official.

Meshorer and Qedar doesn't add anything to this. Does anyone have an image of the Cilician coins the head was derived from?

[Aarmale]

I may have found the coin that the Samaritan coin was based off of.




Heres the description for both:

CILICIA, Uncertain mint. Circa 4th Century BC. AR Obol (0.74 gm). Janiform (bicephalic) head, the left face bearded, the right not / Tricephalic bearded head. SNG Levante 202 (this coin). Good VF, hoard patina. Rare.

CILICIA, Uncertain mint. Circa 4th century BC. AR Obol (0.67 gm). Janiform (bicephalic) head, the left face bearded, the right not / Tricephalic bearded head. SNG Levante 201 (this coin); SNG France -; BMC Lycaonia -; SNG Copenhagen -; SNG von Aulock -; Jameson 1458A. Heavy hoard patina, good VF. Rare.

Attached is the reverse compared with the obverse of the M&Q 141.

[Robert_Brenchley]

You may well be right. The Samarians also used a Janiform head similar to that one.

[Lloyd Taylor]

The tricephalic head on the Cilician obol is masterfully rendered. Its easy to conceive of it as the basis or prototype from which the cruder Samaritan obol was copied.  As you noted previously, the Samaritans had a propensity to copy other designs so it may be as simple as that.  The uncertain 4th Century BC date of the Cilician obol can be be readily accommodates the prototype hypothesis.

I'm critical of the "pidyon ha-ben" theory, because in the early coinage of Samaria (and Yehud Medinata) didn't depict any really "Jewish" things.....

Like you I agree that this story just does not ring true in terms of the imagery (owls of Athena associated with another pagan god on the obverse does not sit comfortably with the monotheistic background religion of the proposal), nor the cultural realities of the Samaritans.  Of course some imaginative souls might see in the tricephalic head the antecedent basis of the "Holy Trinity", but I would not go so far.  Certainly, much of modern western religion has its prototypes in ancient pagan religions, e.g. the contemporary concept and depiction of angels is undoubtedly based on Roman Victory and in turn on Greek Nike.  But this sort of reasoning can be taken to an extreme in search of higher value coin sales and I suspect the "pidyon ha-ben" hypothesis may be just that.

Others probably disagree, but I think the symbolism of this coin, if there is any, is lost to time.  A remarkable type, nonetheless.

[Robert_Brenchley]

That's the thing; everything in Jewish law and practice is predicated on monotheism, or at the very least monolotry (exclusive worship of one god, without denying the existence of the others). The people striking these coins were Israelites, but had no hesitation about making images of other gods.