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Research Coins: Electronic Auction

 
235, Lot: 293. Estimate $500.
Sold for $440. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

PHARONIC KINGS of EGYPT. Nektanebo II. 361-343 BC. Æ (15mm, 3.34 g, 11h). Ram leaping left, head reverted / Scales; c/m: helmeted bust right. Weiser 1 (Nektanebo II); Butcher 11 (uncertain northern Syrian mint); for c/m: Howgego pl. 9, 192 (on same type). Near VF, dark green patina.


Nekht-her-hebet, or Nektanebo II as he was known to the Greeks, was the nephew of Pharaoh Tachos (Djed-her). Placed in command of the Egyptian army in Syria during the Satrapal Revolt, he turned his troops against his own king and took Egypt by force. In 351-350 BC he repelled a Persian invasion but was driven from his throne in 344-343 BC by a second assault. He fled Egypt, found refuge in Ethiopia, and retained control of Upper Egypt for another few years. As the last pharaoh, Alexander sought to connect himself with Nektanebo after conquering Egypt, allowing the rumor that he was in fact his son to spread. Alexander’s connection to the pharaoh lasted, and for years the sarcophagus of Nektanebo II, now in the British Museum, was considered to be Alexander’s own.

The traditional attribution of this issue to Nektanebo, however enticing, has been increasingly contested. Finds of the coins have been consistently noted outside of Egypt. Kevin Butcher has placed the bronzes at Antioch circa 1st century BC, where the leaping ram imagery would fit well.