[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.