Judaea, Athens Tetradrachm after 353 BC, AR 20.5mm., 17.25g. Head of Athena r. with frontally depicted eye, wearing crested Attic helmet decorated with three olive leaves and a palmette, and wearing earring. Graffito on cheek, Aramaic letters: Shin(?) Beth, Daleth and Beth. Rev. Owl r. head facing; in upper l. field, olive spray and crescent; in r. field, ΑΘΕ. Square incuse. In the pi-style era reverse owls tend to be simplified, and olive berries are sometimes omitted. For the coin type see: Kroll 2011, p. 4, Fig. 1c; van Alfen 2012, p. 96, fig. 5.16.

Apparently unique with this grafitto and countermark on helm, slightly off-centre, otherwise Good Very Fine.

The shape of the flan of this Athenian pi-stlye tetradrachm, along with the layering of the sides, proves that the coin is restruck from a flattened and folded-over earlier Athenian coin. The Aramaic graffito reveals that this coin circulated in the Levant. The practice of graffiti on coins seems to be a phenomenon confined to the Levant. Deliberate incisions first appear on silver issues of the Persian period (fifth-fourth centuries BC) and become common during Hellenistic times (fourth-third centuries BC). This phenomenon is also well attested on Late Roman and Byzantine solidi, and on the Umayyad gold dinars after the reform by ‘Abd al-Malik. It is evident that graffiti may have had a dissimilar function in different periods and several theories have been suggested regarding their meaning. It has been proposed that they represent initials or letter combinations that served as personal marks or secret identifications of owners, money-changers and merchants. It has also been suggested that they might have been aids to counting and reckoning. The most detailed review of the phenomenon appears in Elayi and Lemaire 1998, pp. 15–19. In addition, winning bids of EEC clients for this coin are subject to a 5% fee on hammer price as a reimbursement for import duty paid to HMRC.