Gaza: A City of Many Battles 6

Gaza: A City of Many Battles 6

A.D. 1839.--A great plague broke out in Gaza, and carried off large

numbers of its inhabitants.

 

A.D. 1878.--The Church Missionary Society commenced work at Gaza.

 

FOOTNOTES:

 

[10] Some of these events in the first section are not referred to

either in the Old Testament or the Books of the Maccabees.

 

[11] Perhaps the earliest notice of Gaza is contained in the

Tel-el-Amarna tablets in a letter from a local Governor, who then held

it for Egypt.

 

[12] _Ant._, XIV. iv. 4; _Bell. Jud._, I. vii. 7.

 

[13] _Bell. Jud._, I. xx. 3, and II. vi. 3.

 

[14] Paul was a native of Tarsus. He became a monk or abbot of the

famous Upper Egyptian Rule of Tabenna, founded by St. Pachomius, _c._

A.D. 340.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER III

 

FRANKINCENSE (ARABIAN) AND GAZA

 

 

In early times the Beduins of the desert were glad of a market in Gaza

for their spices and frankincense. In fact, according to Dr. Meyer

(from whom I freely quote), the foundation of Gaza is most probably

associated with the Minæans in their development of the frankincense

trade. Extensive remains have been found in Central and Southern

Arabia, which have been ascribed to these Minæans. Mr. Edward Glaser

maintains that this people existed from about the seventeenth century

B.C., and that the Sabæans followed them in the occupancy of those

regions. If this be allowed, it seems to follow that Gaza was founded,

or at least augmented, by this early Arabian people.

 

The wealth of the Minæan kingdom was derived chiefly from the

transportation of frankincense and other spices from the East, and

from Southern Arabia, which the caravans carried through the desert to

Gaza.[15]

 

In 674 B.C. Esar-haddon, son of Sennacherib, undertook a campaign

against the Arabian tribes, put an end to the Minæan kingdom, and

secured control of the spice-trade route.

 

During the Persian period (539-332 B.C.) Gaza was the chief centre of

the frankincense trade.

 

According to Dr. Birdwood in his article on "The Perfumes of the

Bible," _Bible Educator_, vol. i, p. 378, "it is very surprising that

so great a weight of evidence in favour of frankincense being produced

in Arabia and Africa should ever have been set aside for the idle fancy

that India was the source of the olibanum (ὁ λίβανος) commerce."

 

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 [mem],

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 [swastica sign] of the male Swastica,

and the more common [swastica sign] 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."