FOOTNOTE:
[15] See Isaiah lx. 6, and Jeremiah vi. 20.
CHAPTER IV
NOTES ON GAZA COINS
An article of mine, entitled, "Notes on Gaza Coins," appeared in the Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund, April 1912. Since that date my attention has been drawn to an additional coin referred to by Dr. Meyer in his History of the City of Gaza, Chap. XVI. He begins by mentioning that an early coin attributed to Gaza is the so-called Jehovah coin of the British Museum. This coin is found in the printed catalogue of 1814, although purchased about fifty years previous. On palæographical and archæological grounds it is assigned to about 400 b.c. On the obverse appears a head with a helmet; on the reverse, a figure seated in a chariot, with a bird in his hand. Above the figure, in Phœnician characters, are the three letters (יהו). A bearded head, wearing a mask, is also to be found on the reverse.
The coinage of Gaza in the fifth and fourth centuries b.c. has been identified by M. Six, and consists of darics and smaller coins of Attic weight and of various types.
In Nehemiah vii. 70, the Revised Version of the Old Testament reads thus: "The Tirshatha gave to the treasury a thousand darics of gold," whereas the Authorised Version has "a thousand drams of gold."
The gold daric and siglos (silver shekel) are the first coins that can possibly have had legal currency in Palestine.
In the second half of the fifth century b.c., the wealthy commercial cities on the Mediterranean seaboard had begun to issue silver money under their native kings. The great maritime city of Gaza was among the principal trade centres of this period.
Herodotus, c. 484-409 b.c. (iii. 5), mentions Gaza as scarcely inferior in size to Sardes, the capital of the kingdom of Lydia.
The influence of Athens at this date is strikingly shown by the coins of Gaza, which not only imitate the type and legend of the coins of Athens, but are struck on the Attic standard.
On March 20, 1912, at a meeting of the British Academy, in the rooms of the Royal Society, Mr. G. F. Hill, of the British Museum, read a paper on "Some Cults of Palestine in the Græco-Roman Age," from which the following passage is extracted—
"The coinage of Gaza entirely confirms and amplifies the evidence which has of late been accumulating concerning the primitive connection of the Philistine cities with Crete. The name of the great Gazæan god Marnas, who offered such stubborn resistance to Christianity, is probably not Syrian but Cretan. He is the Cretan Zeus, a young god, with a goddess resembling the huntress Artemis for his consort, just as in Crete there seems to be a connection between the young Zeus Velchanos and the goddess Britomartis, who is Artemis. Gaza was a Minoan foundation, and Minos—himself a form of the Cretan Zeus—was worshipped at Gaza, which, indeed, was actually called Minoa."[16]
After the capture of Gaza by Alexander the Great, 332 b.c., regal coins were struck there with the frequent monogram Γ͞Α, both under Ptolemy II, Philadelphus, 285-246 b.c., Ptolemy III, Euergetes I, 246-221 b.c., and Demetrius I, Soter, of Syria, 162-150 b.c.
The autonomous bronze money of Gaza dates from an era commencing 61 b.c. Of this period no silver money of Gaza is extant.
The imperial coins of Gaza from Augustus to Gordian bear two different sets of dates; the first Gaza era beginning 61 b.c., the second beginning a.d. 129. The second era probably commemorates the visit of Hadrian to Gaza.[17] On some of the coins these two eras appear concurrent. These imperial coins, with inscriptions ΓΑΖΑΙΩΝ, ΓΑΖΑ, etc., have usually the addition of the Phœnician letter
, from which the Swastica, the characteristic mark on Gaza coins, is possibly derived, the initial representing the divinity Marnas. The Temple of Marnas was called the Marneion.[18]
"In the last days of paganism the great god of Gaza, now known as Marnas (our lord), was regarded as the god of rains, and invoked against famine. That Marnas was lineally descended from Dagon is probable, and it is therefore interesting to note that he gave oracles, that he had a circular temple, where he was sometimes worshipped by human sacrifices, that there were wells in the sacred circuit, and that there was also a place of adoration to him, situated, in old Semitic fashion, outside the town. Certain Marmora in the temple, which might not be approached, especially by women, may perhaps be connected with the threshold which the priests of Dagon would not touch with their feet"[19] (1 Sam. v. 5).
Herod Agrippa I became King of Judæa a.d. 41, and possessed the entire kingdom of Herod the Great. Among the coins of Agrippa I under Claudius, Madden (Coins of the Jews, p. 137, No. 2) reproduces a coin which probably represents a ceremony taking place in the temple of the god Marnas at Gaza. "There were in Gaza eight temples of the Sun, of Venus, of Apollo, of Proserpine, and of Hecate; that which is called Heroon, or of the Priests, that of the Fortune of the City, called Τυχεῖον, and that of Marneion, which the citizens said is the Cretan-born Jupiter, and which they considered to be more glorious than any other temple in existence."
Dr. Donald Coles, of Haifa, has, in his collection of over one hundred specimens of Gaza coins, an exceptionally interesting coin of Hadrian, a.d. 130, in excellent condition, re-struck under Simon Bar-Cochab, a.d. 132-135. This Hadrian bronze coin is quoted in De Saulcy's Numismatique de la Terre Sainte, p. 215, No. 1, and the re-struck coin during the Revolt of the Jews, a.d. 132-135 is reproduced on Plate XV, No. 4, in his Recherches sur la numismatique judaïque.
It was not unusual for these Simon Bar-Cochab coins to be re-struck from Ascalon, and other current coinage.
Among all the writers in the Quarterly Statement of the P. E. F. from 1894-1901 on the Swastica, or Fylfot, not one of them seems to be aware that the Swastica is constantly found as the distinguishing mint-mark of Gaza, e.g. on Plate XI of Numismatique de la Palestine, Gaza coins, there are both the sign
of the male Swastica, and the more common
female Swastica, revolving in the opposite direction on the reverse of coins of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Lucius Verus, Faustina Junior and Lucilla, Julia Domna, Plautilla, Geta.
The Swastica is an Eastern symbol of the Sun, and is occasionally known as Gammadion, and mystic Fylfot. The latest idea formed regarding the Swastica is, that it may be a form of the old wheel symbolism, and that it represents the solar system. It is often connected with the Sun, as in the Island of Melos, first colonised by Phœnicia. Its great diffusion in Eastern Asia is due to its being a Buddhist emblem, "the wheel of the law."
In the Catacombs at Rome it is well known on the tunic of the Good Shepherd, and on the garments of the Fossores, a class of men employed in the offices of Christian sepulture, and in opening fresh graves and catacombs.
The Triskelia, or Three Legs of the Isle of Man, and some Syracuse coins in the reign of Agathocles, 317-289 b.c., and other towns in Sicily, are only variants of the Swastica.
Dr. Albert Churchward, in The Signs and Symbols of Primordial Man (London: Swan, Sonnenschein & Co., Ltd., 1910), supplies a mint of valuable information scattered throughout this learned work. On page [44] he states that this Swastica was also the most sacred sign amongst the British Druids. Page 115 (figure 49) shows the Mexican Kalendar in form of a Swastica Cross. On page 261 the Swastica is said to be frequently found on stones in Devonshire, and a good specimen is in the museum at Torquay.
"It is a fact that prehistoric man of the two hemispheres had the knowledge to spin fibre and thread, to wind it on bobbins (see spindle wheels found in museums) having the same sign on them wherever found, viz. the Swastika
" (p. 44).
"This symbol has probably a wider range than any other that has been preserved from prehistoric times" (p. 352).
Dr. Churchward states, in Primordial Man, p. 187, that the recent discoveries of Flinders Petrie at Abydos tend to show that the Druids derived the Swastika from Egypt more than 20,000 years ago!!!
On April 16, 1912, a few poor specimens of Roman bronze coins struck at Gaza were brought to me in that city, but the local finds seem to have become nearly exhausted.
A representation of the temple Tychæon erected to the Fortune of the City occurs on a coin of Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius (shortly before a.d. 161), which shows a tetrastyle temple. (Most of the temples depicted on the Gaza coins are distyle.) The goddess of the town, as well as the heifer, also appear on this coin.