Ira and Larry Goldberg Auctioneers
Auction 90 2-3 February 2016
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Judaea, Hasmonean Kingdom. Mattathias Antigonos. Æ Prutah (1.37 g), 40-37 BCE. Trace of 'Mattatayah the High Priest', showbread table. Reverse: [BAΣIΛEΩΣ ANTIΓONOY], seven-branched menorah. TJC 41; Hendin 1168; Menorah Coin Project ATG 07, engraver C, dies O11/R16 (this coin). Extremely Rare and the only ancient Jewish coin depicting the menorah. Very Fine.
Mattathias Antigonos Prutah Showbread table / menorah.
Fewer than 40 specimens known. These prutot were larger and thinner than the other prutot of Antigonus, but of a similar quantity of copper.
This prutah type is the only coin from antiquity which depicts both the showbread table and the menorah. The objects depicted on the coins of Antigonos predate the destruction of the Temple (70 A.D.) by more than a century. The engravers of the coin may actually have seen the menorah and the showbread table, both of which are depicted in the relief sculpted in the Arch of Titus (c. 82 A.D.).
The menorah and the showbread had been situated opposite one another in front of the entrance to the Holy of Holies (which housed the Ark of the Covenant), and were considered the most sacred of the Temple appurtenances.
"The very boldness of his [Antigonos'] utilization of these images may have indicated just how intense was his struggle for sovereignty against Herod, since he [Antigonos] flouted the traditional convention observed by earlier Jewish rulers against using sacred appurtenances from the Temple on coinage. He did this perhaps in a desperate effort to make the point that the right to mint coins was his as the legitimate heir to the high priesthood, a hereditary post, and a title to which Herod could never lay claim" (C. W. Samuels, The Numismatic Legacy of the Jews (Ed. Paul Rynearson), New York: The Numismatic Review, 2000, 30-32).
Estimated Value $45,000-UP.
Mattathias Antigonos Prutah Showbread table / menorah.
Fewer than 40 specimens known. These prutot were larger and thinner than the other prutot of Antigonus, but of a similar quantity of copper.
This prutah type is the only coin from antiquity which depicts both the showbread table and the menorah. The objects depicted on the coins of Antigonos predate the destruction of the Temple (70 A.D.) by more than a century. The engravers of the coin may actually have seen the menorah and the showbread table, both of which are depicted in the relief sculpted in the Arch of Titus (c. 82 A.D.).
The menorah and the showbread had been situated opposite one another in front of the entrance to the Holy of Holies (which housed the Ark of the Covenant), and were considered the most sacred of the Temple appurtenances.
"The very boldness of his [Antigonos'] utilization of these images may have indicated just how intense was his struggle for sovereignty against Herod, since he [Antigonos] flouted the traditional convention observed by earlier Jewish rulers against using sacred appurtenances from the Temple on coinage. He did this perhaps in a desperate effort to make the point that the right to mint coins was his as the legitimate heir to the high priesthood, a hereditary post, and a title to which Herod could never lay claim" (C. W. Samuels, The Numismatic Legacy of the Jews (Ed. Paul Rynearson), New York: The Numismatic Review, 2000, 30-32).
Estimated Value $45,000-UP.