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Message:: [QUOTE="GinoLR, post: 8276691, member: 128351"]The "sign of Marnas" is generally seen as the Aramaic letter mem, and understood as the initial of M(arnas). This letter was already visible on Philistian Athenian-style obols or hemiobols minted in the 4th c. BC, like this one :[ATTACH=full]1461291[/ATTACH](Numismatica Ars Classica 64.1555, AR 0.34 g) not my coin... In the same period, under Persian rule, Gaza issued silver coins with the two Phoenician letters 'ayin zayin which are beyond doubt the initials of 'Aza, i.e. Gaza. I have never seen the mem and the 'ayin zayin associated on the same coin: the mem is always on Athenian types, the 'ayin zayin always on non-Athenian types. I never heard of any Athenian-style coin with mem found in Gaza, it seems that all known specimens are of unknown provenance. Gitler and Tal (Philistian Coins) attribute them to Gaza just because the mem later appeared on Gaza coins from the 2nd c. BC to the 3rd c. AD, not counting the lead weights, and became the very symbol of Gaza mint under Roman rule. Under the Ptolemies, royal tetradrachms minted in Gaza had the mintmark ΓA, in Greek. It is under the Seleucids that the mark mem appears on Gaza coins. [ATTACH=full]1461293[/ATTACH]Reverse of an AE coin of Demetrius II Nicator minted in Gaza (mintmark ΓA), dated AoP (171 sel. = 142 BC). I suppose the circular legend is BAΣIΛEΩΣ ΔHMHTPIoY, Apollo standing left nude, holding arrow and bow, ΓA / AoP in left field, retrograde mem in right field.This coin is in the BNF in Paris, but not in any catalogue it seems... Another unpublished AR tetradrachm dated ΓoP (173 sel. = 140 BC) with the same retrograde mem :[ATTACH=full]1461298[/ATTACH]Demetrius II Nicator, tetradrachm, 140 BC. AR 24 mm, 12.75 g. CNG 109.317, from the MNL collection (what is it?). Unique and unpublished. Not my coin of course ! In the end of the Hellenistic period, some AE coins from Gaza show this mem, most do not. In the Roman period, the mem is almost systematic on all Gaza coins, sometimes in the legend, sometimes in the field, and on several small module coins the reverse type is just a single large mem (with the date). This symbol is also used on lead weights. The problem is : what does this mem mean??? Everybody thinks it is a mem for M(arnas), the main deity worshipped in the city, Marnas being the Greek form of Aramaic Maran which means "Our Lord". If it is true, it means that Marnas should have been the main god of Gaza already in the 4th c. BC., or, if the 4th c. BC Athenian-style obols with mem are not from Gaza, at least since the 2nd c. BC. But no epigraphic, numismatic or literary source ever mentions the name of the god Marnas before Hadrian (large Gaza coins with the legend ΓAZA MAPNAC or ΓAZA MAPNA) and, after this, before St Jerome in the late 4th c. AD! All texts mentioning Marnas and his Gaza temple are of late date : 4th, 5th, 6th c. AD. According to Josephus, when Gaza was stormed by the Jewish army of Alexander Jannaeus c. 100/99 BC, the 500 members of the city boule were seeking protection in the temple of Apollo. Josephus does not mention any Marnas in Gaza. The signification of the Gaza mint-mark is a real puzzle... The only source we can rely on is a short passage of Damascius who says that the Egyptians have a symbol to signify a god, "the Heliopolitans (of Baalbek) have another one, and the Gazaeans another one for Zeus". A graphic symbol to signify Zeus in Gaza, this must be this mem ! George Clooney would say "What else?". I even suspect Marnas of having been an aniconic religion, like Islam whose god is only represented by the monogram ﷲ, because on all Gaza coinage there is no representation that may be clearly identified with Marnas without any doubt, and when the Marneion (temple of Marnas) was stormed, sacked and destroyed by the Christians in 401 or 402, Mark the Deacon who was present at the scene and tells it at length with much details does not mention the destruction of the idol...[/QUOTE]

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