Triton XVIII, Lot: 83. Estimate $5000. Sold for $4750. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CILICIA, Tarsos. Mazaios. Satrap of Cilicia, 361/0-334 BC. AR Stater (20mm, 10.40 g, 4h). Baaltars seated left, his torso facing, holding lotus-tipped scepter in extended right hand, left hand holding chlamys at his waist; thymiaterion to left, B’LTRZ (in Aramaic) to right / Lion walking left on ground; MZDY (in Aramaic) above. Casabonne Series 5, Group B; SNG France 431 (Myriandros); SNG Levante 188 (Myriandros); Sunrise 56 corr. (mint; this coin). EF, even gray toning with light golden hues around the devices, some minor surface delaminations, obverse a little off center.

From the Sunrise Collection.

The attribution of the walking-lion series of Mazaios had originally been given to the mint of Tarsos, but Newell argued that they more likely were struck at Myriandros in his study of that mint in AJN 53 (1919). Later, J.D. Bing, in AJN 1 (1989), argued for an alternative attribution of the Myriandros coinage to the mint of Issos. While most numismatic works continue to follow Newell, Casabonne’s significant study of Cilicia during the Persian period convincingly returns these coins of Mazaios to the mint of Tarsos (cf. Casabonne, pp. 215–7).