170 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 74:3 (2011) T emples and other sacred buildings are commonly found on Roman coins, especially on bronze coins minted in the East. By the time die engravers of the second century c.e. tackled the representation of the sanctu- ary on Mount Gerizim, they were drawing on a long history of architectural representation on coins. Yet the die engravers chose a less-used tradition of placing the temple within the landscape; in doing so, they provide us with information on what the peak sanctuary may have looked like in the second century. In the third century, the die engravers abstracted the reverse type by miniaturizing it and using it as a replacement for a Tyche as a symbol of the Roman rights of its citizens and as a symbol of imperial favor. To do this, they drew on the idea of the mountain itself as an object of worship, an idea found only in the Roman East, and best seen as El-Gabal, the sacred stone of Emesa. This abstraction of the sanctuary on Mount Gerizim is not entirely unique, though it is rare even in the third century, when abstraction was becoming a normal means of communicating through the visual arts. On coins, we can see the shift in aesthetics from naturalism to abstraction—a hallmark of late antique art—on objects that were intended to be readily understood by all users. This movement from naturalism to abstraction has been seen on the monumental arts of the third century and understood as originating in the Roman East. By studying the coins of one city of the empire, we can begin to understand some of the mechanism of this change and see how its language was understood on objects of mass communication. Geographical and Historical Setting Mount Gerizim is one of two peaks that rise near the mod- ern city of Nablus in the West Bank (figs. 1–2); it is still home to a small community of Samaritans, a people who believe they are descendants of the Israelites who once lived in the north- ern kingdom. Even in antiquity, they broke from their Jewish neighbors, as they thought that they preserved the worship of God in a manner more pure than the Jews who had returned from exile in Babylon. The mountain itself was revered by Jews and Samaritans as the spot where Abram stopped on his jour- ney out of Ur (Gen 12:9); where Jacob camped on his return to Canaan, bought land, dug a well, and made an altar (Gen 33:18–19); and where his bones were eventually buried (Josh 24:32). Moses commanded six of the tribes of Israel to assem- Jane DeRose Evans FROM MOUNTAIN TO ICON FROM MOUNTAIN TO ICON Mount Gerizim on Roman Provincial Mount Gerizim on Roman Provincial Coins from Neapolis, Samaria Coins from Neapolis, Samaria