The yaw coin dates from the 4th century BCE and was discovered in southern Gaza where the cult of YHWH, the God of the Hebrew Bible,was dominant. Its official description is this:

Langdon (1931):

“A coin from Gaza in Southern Philista, fourth century BC, the period of the Jewish subjection to the last of the Persian kings, has the only known representation of this Hebrew deity. The letters YHW are incised just above the hawk(?) which the god holds in his outstretched left hand, Fig. 23. He wears a himation, leaving the upper part of the body bare, and sits upon a winged wheel. The right arm is wrapped in his garment. At his feet is a mask. Because of the winged chariot and mask it has been suggested that Yaw had been identified with Dionysus on account of a somewhat similar drawing of the Greek deity on a vase where he rides in a chariot drawn by a satyr. The coin was certainly minted under Greek influence, and consequently others have compared Yaw on his winged chariot to Triptolemos of Syria, who is represented on a wagon drawn by two dragons. … Yaw of Gaza really represents the Hebrew, Phoenician and Aramaic Sun-god, El, Elohim, whom the monotheistic tendencies of the Hebrews had long since identified with Yaw…Sanchounyathon…based his history upon Yerombalos, a priest of Yeuo, undoubtedly the god Yaw, who is thus proved to have been worshipped at Gebal as early as 1000 BC.” (pp. 43-44. Langdon. 1931)

Yaw image (drawn) with Darwin looking on as he mounts his wheel or chariot.

It has interested scholars for generations that the officially monotheistic and iconoclastic Jews, whose laws strictly prohibited “graven images” of the sort used by pagan kings on their coins, would permit their national God to be represented in a blatantly Hellenistic way.

But that is only half the story. Upon close inspection it is clear that the coin is also miraculous. In the lower right a clear image of Charles Darwin in profile, accurate in detail right down to his flowing beard, appears.

Is Darwin trying to tell us something, proleptically? Is this the final refutation of all those skeptics who say that Darwin was an atheist? Or does the coin make some association between Darwin and Yahweh, perhaps suggesting that Darwin has been supplanted by the God of revelation who stole his wheel? Or is the coin an encrypted message, a token of a collaboration between God and Darwin in the evolutionary process? Is it possible that the face is a representation of Jesus and that Darwin was his direct descendant, or perhaps a reincarnation?

You must judge for yourself–but this is very exciting archaeology.

Yaw coin, Persia (?), 4th BCE