Lot 7
Judaea, Yehud (Judah). Hezekiah. Silver 1/2 Ma'ah Obol (0.22 g), ca. 375-332 BCE. Youthful male head left. Rev. 'YHZQYH' (Yehezqio - Hezekiah), forepart of winged and horned lynx left. (TJC 24; Hendin 1065). Attractive find patina. Well centered and sharply struck. Toned. Superb extremely fine. Estimate $2,000UP
Purchased privately at the NYINC, January 2002.
This remarkable coin names Hezekiah, who is usually identified as a High Priest of Jerusalem serving as governor of Judaea in the late Persian period. Lorber and Gitler have argued that the use of the Persic weight standard for this issue seems to support this dating, alt-hough it is also possible that it was struck shortly after the conquest of the region by Alexander the Great in 333/2 BC. Subsequent issues of Hezekiah feature the Attic standard favored by Alexander, but the young male head on this Persic-weight issue seems out of place in the late Persian period. Could it be a local portrait of Alexander himself? The peculiar lynx-griffin type of the reverse reflects local taste - similar creatures occur on Philistian and Samarian coinages of the fourth century BCE.
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| Realized $2,714 |
