Sale: CNG 79, Lot: 669. Estimate $500.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 17 September 2008.  Sold For $785. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SYRIA, Coele-Syria. Heliopolis. Valerian I. AD 253-260. Æ 28mm (13.67 g, 6h). Laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust right / The temples of Venus, on left, and Jupiter, on right; agonistic urn above. SNG München -; SNG Copenhagen -; Price and Trell fig. 281 var. (three urns above). VF, brown and green patina, earthen deposits.

There were two principal temples at Heliopolis, both of which still exist today, one dedicated to the goddess Venus, the other to the god Jupiter. This coin presumably shows these two temples. Interestingly, instead of making the two temples exactly the same, as was typically done when engraving coin dies, the engraver attempted an uncharacteristic realism by engraving what he saw; namely, the temple of Jupiter is the nearer of the two, and is larger than that of Venus.