The God on the Winged Wheel: Towards the Identification of the «First Jewish Coin»
Shenkar M. A.
The article is devoted to the unique «Yehud» drachma of unknown provenance preserved in the British Museum. Since its first publication in 1815, this coin has received much attention of different scholars, for the image of a divinity seated on the winged wheel, which is depicted on the reverse, was considered to be an unparalleled representation of the God of Israel. The coin bears an inscription of three Aramaic letters. The first two are soundly identified as «Y» and «H», but the last letter could be read not only as «D», but also as «W» and even «R». The obverse of the coin represents the profile of a bearded man wearing a Corinthian helmet. His identification with Bagoas, a general of Artaxerxes III known from Josephus Flavius as a Persian official who interfered with the Judean matters and desecrated the Temple, should be rejected, since Bagoas was an eunuch and could not have had a beard. Since no images of Persians wearing Corinthian helmets are known, it seems that the coin shows a Greek mercenary leader who probably held some official position in the imperial government in Palestine in the first half of the 4th century BC (if this is in fact a portrait of some historical person and not a symbolic representation of a mercenary or a divinity as it was also suggested) and probably minted coins in order to hire mercenary troops. Despite being clearly associated with a well-known iconographic type of Zeus, the divinity on the reverse, shows some unusual features for the Greek art (for example, a winged wheel instead of a throne) and looks somewhat oriental. It rather reminds of one of the figures in the winged disk – a very common motive in the Achaemenid art, which probably depicts a chief Achaemenid god, Ahura Mazda. Since this drachma does not fit into the shekel weight system of the Yehud coins and stylistically resembles the coinages of Philistia (its attribution to Judah is based only on reading of the inscription as «YHD»), some scholars have proposed that it was issued in Gaza, or even by Edomite Jews. Nevertheless, it is more likely that this coin was minted in Samaria. The iconography of Samarian coinage is very similar to that of Philistia and demonstrates a strong Greek and (especially) Persian influence. In particular in Samaria we find the closest parallels to this coin, namely portraits of bearded warrior in helmet and images of winged Ahura Mazda (which are not found in Philistia). Moreover, if the reading «YHW» is accepted, it is probably the Samarian Yahwe who is depicted on the drachma.