The Anchor of the King of the City

The Anchor of the King of the City

The anchor was the first symbol of the Christian church. It is 
associated with hope to seafarers and thus I suspect it is a symbol 
of Melqart, and thus John the Baptist. This symbol resembles the 
Ankh that is associated with Cybele and the Corybantes that have 
been associated with the Daktlys who I suspect were the first 
Nazarites. What I see in this symbol is Isis in a ark traveling over 
the sea. As Venus she is a star cradled in the arc of a cresent moon.

ANCHOR
Meaning: Trust, Hope and Seafaring. The anchor was seen as a symbol 
of trust and hope, because it was used to secure a ship in the rough 
waters of the sea. In the Bible, St. Paul wrote that "hope we have 
as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast". Because an 
anchor vaguely looks like a cross, it became a symbol of salvation 
during the Middle Ages. In heraldry it is mainly used to represent a 
connection with seafaring.
 
The Ankh in the Mysteries
The symbolism of the Ankh as a key to life is not confined to the 
Egyptians and appears with the Romans in the god Janus as the 
opener. The precursor to this appears to have been the Phrygian 
goddess Cybele who was linked by the Greeks with the mother goddess 
Rhea.

Cybele's priests known as Corybantes and her worshippers offered her 
passionate and intense homage bewailing the death of her lover Attis 
with solemn ceremonies, chanting and prayers, and then indulging in 
frenzy, jubilation, and song to herald his spiritual rebirth (Drury, 
loc. cit., p. 54). Thus the symbolism, particularly of the keys and 
control of death and rebirth, was easily transferred to Christianity.
The observation of the keys in the Aeon theology (see Ulansey The 
Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries, Oxford, 1989) indicates that it 
is of wide dispersion in the orient and has a symbolism that is not 
yet fully understood.

The Ankh and the Resurrection
Archaeologists last century (and until even now) were divided on the 
symbolism of the Ankh. It was held to be:
A Nilometer (Plucke);
the key of a canal lock (Zoega);
a jar upon an altar (Ungarelli);
a degenerate form of the winged globe (Layard);
a phallus (Jablonski); and
an Egyptian loin cloth (Sayce).
In the tomb paintings, it appears to be employed by the divinities 
to awaken the dead to a new life. The 12th dynasty bas-relief shows 
the goddess Anukit holding the extremity of the Ankh to the nostrils 
of the king Usertesen III:
I give thee life, stability, purity, like Ra, eternally.
Elsewhere ,the Ankh symbolises life, living (cf. Coemans Manuel de 
langue égyptienne, Ghent, 1887, Pt. 1, p. 46, D'Alviella, op. cit.).
The handled cross thus signifies the resurrection and its use 
precedes Christianity. The allocation of the keyed or handled cross 
is thus indicative of the authority, entities or system to raise the 
dead. D'Alviella holds that from Egypt it became a magic or 
propitiatory sign which spread to the Phoenicians and to the whole 
Semitic world.
Its presence has been noted on bas-reliefs, tombs, pottery, jewels, 
coins, from Sardinia to Susiana, along the shore of Africa, in 
Phrygia, Palestine, and Mesopotamia. Upon monuments of Ph?nician or 
Hittite origin it is held in the hands of kings or priests, as with 
the Egyptians and is associated with the tree of life and the lotus 
flower. Its extreme symbolical importance led the peoples who 
borrowed it from the Egyptians to combine it with such emblems of 
their own as presented an analogous form or suggested a cognate 
idea. Thus the Ph?nicians derived from it a mixed emblem, in which 
the handled cross is grafted upon the cone representing the goddess 
Astarte or Tanit, `she who gives life' (see fig. 12).
The Greeks anthropomorphosed it so as to reproduce the features of 
their goddess of life - Aphrodite, Harmonia, Artemis of Ephesus etc. 
(see fig. 13) (D'Alviella, op. cit., p. 326).
There is no doubt that the use of the cross associated with the 
symbols of the resurrection and new life are hopelessly intermingled 
with the theology of the ancients


         

Pennies from heaven, or elsewhere        

 

By Danny Rubinstein     
 

How did hundreds of thousands of bronze coins from the reign of 
Alexander Jannaeus (Yannai) end up on the bottom of the Dead Sea? 
        
 

For some years now rumors have been circulating among antiquities 
afficionados in Israel about a huge coin hoard discovered along the 
Dead Sea shore. According to Donald Zvi Ariel, head of the coin 
division at the Israel Antiquities Authority, an acquaintance from 
Haifa University approached him 15 years ago with an envelope 
containing 190 ancient coins. The contact recounted visiting the 
Dead Sea, at a spot somewhere south of Ein Feshkha, sticking his 
hand down into shallow water and bringing up a handful of coins from 
the bottom. Since the area where the coins were found is in the West 
Bank, Ariel refrained from examining them carefully and sent the 
envelope to the office of archaeological affairs at military 
government headquarters.        
 


 

Military officials in charge of archaeological finds looked into the 
matter, and the story also spread among antiquities thieves, 
assorted treasure seekers, and the antiquities dealers of East 
Jerusalem. Word of the discovery of a remarkably large coin hoard 
even appeared in several scholarly papers, but the affair was not 
widely publicized. An article by Ariel about the hoard will appear 
in coming months in a periodical published by the Israel Exploration 
Society.

Finding ancient coin hoards is something collectors and 
archaeologists know all about. It's hard to find the hoards because 
whoever hid them back in the day made sure to bury them and 
camouflage them well. One of the known coin hoards discovered in 
Israel is the one found at Mamshit (Kurnub) east of Dimona. There 
were close to 9,000 silver coins there, worth a bundle. A large 
hoard of silver Tyrian shekels was discovered 40 years ago in Isfiya 
on Mount Carmel and most of it wound up in private collections. A 
long list of other coin hoards come up in stories of antiquities 
dealers and collectors from Israel and around the world.

Unprecedented numbers

The coin hoard from the Dead Sea didn't inspire great excitement 
because the bronze coins were very simple; there are plenty like 
them in Israel and their value is low. For comparison's sake, the 
market value of ancient silver coins dating from the Second Temple 
period can reach into the hundreds and thousands of dollars each. 
Tiny silver coins of the "yahad" type go for thousands of dollars on 
the antiquities market (the inscription yahad appears on today's 
shekel in a form copied from the ancient coin). Silver shekels 
dating from the Great Revolt era and coins minted during the Bar 
Kochba Revolt also fetch hundreds and thousands of dollars. There 
have been rare coins sold for tens of thousands of dollars at 
auctions, and a few coins went for as much as $100,000-200,000.

Archaeologist and antiquities dealer Lenny Wolf of Jerusalem says 
that until just a few years ago, coins of the sort found at the Dead 
Sea were valued at between $10-20, depending on the mint condition 
and the coin's state of preservation (their value dropped to as low 
as $5 per coin in the past few years because the market was flooded; 
it has lately rebounded). A few years ago, Wolf also heard about the 
big hoard found at the Dead Sea. An Arab merchant told him he had 
purchased many coins from that hoard, and after lengthy negotiations 
Wolf took tens of thousands of coins off his hands.

What's special about the Dead Sea hoard is the sheer number of 
coins. Wolf estimates, and several scholars concur, that there are 
300,000 coins. That is an unprecedented number by Israeli and 
perhaps worldwide standards. Another interesting aspect of this 
hoard is that all of the coins, with a few exceptions, are from a 
single series: Pruta coins minted in the reign of the Hasmonean king 
Alexander Jannaeus (Yannai), who ruled from 104-76 BCE.

The average weight of each coin in the hoard is less than a gram. 
There are larger coins weighing over 3 grams and tiny ones weighing 
a tenth of a gram. Most are relatively well preserved because they 
rested for over 2000 years on the floor of the Dead Sea, with its 
low-oxygen waters.

One side of the coin displays a ship's anchor surrounded by the 
Greek inscription "King Alexander." The anchor is a royal symbol of 
the Seleucid rulers (heirs of Alexander the Great), and Ariel 
believes that Jannaeus adopted it to give his coinage standard 
value. In his book "A Treasury of Jewish Coins," numismatist Yaakov 
Meshorer maintains that Alexander Jannaeus may also have wanted the 
anchor symbol to highlight the fact that he conquered the coastal 
towns in the Land of Israel, from Acre in the north to Gaza and 
Rafah in the south.

The flip side of the coin displays an eight-pointed star, surrounded 
by a crown; in the spaces between the star points appears the Hebrew 
inscription "Yehonatan the king" (the Hebrew name of Alexander 
Jannaeus).      


http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/features/ask/2002/sep13.html



What is the origin of the anchor as a Christian symbol, and why do 
we no longer use it?
CH editors answer your questions.
Posted Sept. 13, 2002
I have heard [the Christian musician] Michael Card say that the 
anchor was a primary Christian symbol until about 400 AD. Is this 
correct? And what is the origin of the symbol?
?Dick
The anchor became a key Christian symbol during the period of Roman 
persecution. As Michael Card observes in his recent album, Soul 
Anchor: "The first century symbol wasn't the cross; it was the 
anchor. If I'm a first century Christian and I'm hiding in the 
catacombs and three of my best friends have just been thrown to the 
lions or burned at the stake, or crucified and set ablaze as torches 
at one of [Emperor] Nero's garden parties, the symbol that most 
encourages me in my faith is the anchor. When I see it, I'm reminded 
that Jesus is my anchor."
Christian use of the anchor echoed Hebrews 6:19: "We have this hope 
as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure." (NIV) Epitaphs on 
believers' tombs dating as far back as the end of the first century 
frequently displayed anchors alongside messages of hope. Such 
expressions as pax tecum, pax tibi, in pace, or "peace be with you" 
speak to the hope Christians felt in their anticipation of heaven. 
Archaeologists found about 70 examples of these kinds of messages in 
one cemetery alone.
But where did Christians get the idea to use an anchor in the first 
place? The anchor appeared as the royal emblem of Seleucus the 
First, king of the Seleucid dynasty established after Alexander the 
Great's campaigns. Seleucus reputedly chose the symbol because he 
had a birthmark in the shape of an anchor. Jews living under the 
empire adopted the symbol on their coinage, though they phased it 
out under the Hasmonean ruler Alexander Jannaeus around 100 B.C.
An even stronger explanation can be found in church history. Around 
100 A.D., the emperor Trajan banished the fourth pope, St. Clement, 
to the Crimea. When the pope converted the people there, Trajan 
ordered that Clement be tied to an iron anchor and drowned. 
Tradition holds that the sea then receded three miles to reveal 
Clement's body buried by angels in a marble mausoleum. This is 
hardly a believable tale, but the story of Clement's martyrdom 
clearly inspired the persecuted Church.
Given its power, why did the anchor fade from use? Scholars have 
found only a few examples dating as late as the middle of the third 
century, and none after 300 A.D. Their most common explanation is 
that as the Empire went from persecuting the Church to sponsoring 
it, Christians no longer needed secret symbols to identify 
themselves. Constantine's conquering cross replaced the anchor as a 
source of encouragement to believers in troubled waters.
Other scholars, though, think the anchor slipped from use because 
the "symbol" was actually a word play in Greek?ankura resembling en 
kurio, or "in the Lord"?which disappeared as Christians chose Latin 
over Greek as their primary language.
Whatever the case, the anchor did not reappear until the 1600s, when 
it experienced a two-century renaissance, particularly as a symbol 
engraved on tombs. One wonders if the recent interest stirred by 
Michael Card marks the beginning of a new revival of this ancient 
symbol.
*Searches on the Internet turn up rather sketchy history of the 
anchor, though it's still possible to piece it together. Michael 
Card's observations cuts to the chase, while the online entry in the 
Catholic Encyclopedia gives a succinct overview. The site also 
offers a 9-page biography of St. Clement. You'll find a mention of 
the anchor's origin with the Seleucid dynasty at: 
http://members.aol.com/fljosephus/coins.htm.
*If you're interested in a detailed analysis of the symbol, check 
out Charles A. Kennedy's "Early Christians and the Anchor" (Biblical 
Archaeologist 38, S-D 1975, pp. 115-124).

http://ancient-coins.com/articles/hasmonean/
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/biography/Ahab.html
of http://phoenicia.org/temple.html






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