Map Coinage of Ionia

Triton XVIII, Lot: 603. Estimate $20000. Sold for $27500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

IONIA, Achaemenid Period. Uncertain satrap. Circa 350-333 BC. AR Tetradrachm (23.5mm, 15.19 g). Uncertain mint. Pythagores, magistrate. Persian king, wearing kidaris and kandys, in kneeling-running stance right, holding spear in right hand, bow in left; [Π]YΘAΓ-O-P-H[Σ] around / Incuse rectangle, containing pattern possibly depicting relief map of the hinterland of Ephesos. Johnston, Earliest 1–4 var. (orientation of legend); Meadows, Administration 328 = BMC Ionia p. 323, 1 var. (same); Mildenberg, Münzwesen, Group 6.2, 111 = Pixodarus 1 = Leu 25, lot 165. Near EF, toned, very slight die shift on obverse. Extremely rare, apparently the seventh and finest known, at least four of which are in museum collections (Berlin, London, Munich, and Paris).

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 at Ephesos under the Persian general Memnon of Rhodes, 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. Some issues have names on the obverse, which Six and Johnston think were city magistrates who authorized some issues for Memnon. However, the theory of Six and Johnston has been the subject of some doubt, most recently by Leo Mildenberg.