Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

232 The Solar Wheel in Greece

In this connexion we must take account of a unique silver drachme
or quarter-shekel, which has been for many years in the British
Museum1 (pi. xxi and fig. 171 a, by. It is struck on the Phoenician

standard3. The obverse shows a bearded
head in three-quarter position (not dou-
ble-struck) facing towards the right and
wearing a crested Corinthian helmet
with a bay-wreath upon it. The reverse
has a square incuse surrounded by a
spiral border, within which we see a
bearded divinity enthroned. He wears a long garment, which
covers his right arm and extends to his feet. He is seated on
a winged and wheeled seat: the wing is archaic in type and rises
high behind his back ; the wheel has six spokes and an inner ring
round its axle. The god has an eagle (or hawk?)4 on his out-
stretched left hand. Before him in the lower right hand corner of
the square is an ugly bearded head. In the field above the seated
deity are the Phoenician letters HA/V, that is, YHW5.

The credit of being the first to decipher and to interpret aright
the inscription belongs to Monsieur C. Clermont-Ganneau. As far
back as 1880 he suggested to Prof. P. Gardner and Dr B. V. Head
that it was the triliteral form of the divine name Jehovah; and in

1 Taylor Combe Veterum populorum et regum numi qui in Museo Britannico adser-

London 1814 p. 242 no. 5 pi. 13, 12, H. de Luynes Essai sur la Numismatique
des Satrapies et de la Phenicie sous les rois Achcemhiides Paris 1846 p. 29 no. r pi. 4,
C. D. Ginsburg in the Palestine Exploration Fund. Quarterly Statement for 1881
London p. 19 ('Jehu in his carriage...the name Jehu in the old Hebrew characters
exactly resembling the letters on the Moabite .stone, only in fact more perfectly written'),
A. Neubauer in the Revue des Etudes juives 1881 ii. 290 cp. ib. 154, E. Babelon Les
Perses Ache'me'nides Paris 1893 p. lxvi fig. 30, J. P. Six in the Num. Chron. New Series
1877 xvii. 229 no. 43, ib. 1878 xviii. 123 ff. no. 3 pi. 6, 8 (Obv. the Syrian god Hadran,
cp. Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins Sicily p. 109 Mamertini no 2 AAPANOY Land K. Wernicke
in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. i. 405]. Rev. J~ahu = ihe Chaldaean god Iao, cp. Lyd.
de mens. 4. 53 p. 111, iff. Wiinsch), E. J. Pilcher in the Proceedings of the Society of
Biblical Archeology 1908 xxx. 45 ff. pi. 1, 1, A. Blanchet in the Rev. Num. iv Serie
1908 xii. 276 f., A. W. Hands in the Num. Chron. Fourth Series 1909 ix. 121 ff. fig. 1,
G. Macdonald in The Year's Work in Class. Stud. 1909 p. 53, R. Weil in the Zeitschr.f
Num. 1910 xxviii. 28—34 (the Hellenising of Semitic cults in Syria began before the
expeditions of Alexander the Great), Babelon Motin.gr. rom. ii. 2. 655 f. pi. 124, 5.

2 PL xxi is an enlarged photograph of a cast of the reverse.

3 It weighs 50*7 grains (3*3 grammes), and is therefore somewhat lighter than the
average quarter-shekel. It is a well-preserved specimen.

4 The bird is described as a hawk by Taylor Combe, J. P. Six, and E. Babelon (with
a query).

5 See e.g. the comparative tables of Phoenician, Egyptian Aramaic, Old Hebrew, etc.,
forms given by J. Euting Tabula scripturae Hebraicae Argentorati 1882, Forrer Reallex.
p. 714 pi. 202.