The Source of Herod’s Eagle on the Façade of the Temple: Eastern-Hellenistic or Roman?

Abstract

This article discusses the iconographic source of the golden eagle that Herod set on the façade of the Temple. I shall concentrate on numismatics, focusing on the issue minted by Herod in Jerusalem. This eagle is identical to that represented on the Tyrian sheqel, an issue used in the Temple. Its iconography traces its source to the earlier depiction of the eagle on Ptolemaic coins. An in-depth analysis of contemporary numismatic data makes clear that there is no evidence whatsoever that King Herod, through the depiction of an eagle, wished to emphasize his allegiance to Rome.