The Hinterlands of Ephesos

Triton XVIII, Lot: 16. Estimate $20000. Sold for $16000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

IONIA, Achaemenid Period. Uncertain satrap. Circa 350-333 BC. AR Tetradrachm (22mm, 14.94 g). Persian king, wearing kidaris and kandys, in kneeling-running stance right, holding spear in right hand, bow in left / Incuse rectangle, containing pattern possibly depicting relief map of the hinterland of Ephesos. Johnston, Earliest 12 = BMC Ionia p. 324, 3 (same obv. die); Meadows, Administration 328 var. (legend on obv.); Mildenberg, Münzwesen, Group 6.2; Traité II 77–8 (Memnon of Rhodes); Jameson 1787; Pozzi 3138; Sunrise 70 (this coin). EF, toned, light cleaning marks on obverse.

From the Sunrise Collection. Ex Gorny & Mosch 125 (13 October 2003), lot 260.

Johnston has interpreted this remarkable reverse design as a relief map of the hinterland of Ephesos, which would make it the earliest Greek map and first physical relief map known. On the right (north) are the mountains Tmolos and Messogis between the river valleys of the Caÿster and Maeander, to the left of which are three mountain ridges (Madranbaba Dagi, Karincali Dagi, and Akaba Tepesi). Johnston follows Six in suggesting that the coins were probably struck under the Persian general Memnon at Ephesos, circa 336-334 BC, in order to pay his army after he had captured the city, but before his defeat by Alexander at the Battle of Granicus in 334. However, Johnston’s theory has been the subject of some doubt, most recently by Leo Mildenberg.