Triton XVIII, Lot: 605. Estimate $7500. Sold for $9000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

IONIA, Achaemenid Period. Uncertain satrap. Circa 350-333 BC. AR Tetradrachm (21.5mm, 14.75 g). Uncertain mint; De–, magistrate. Persian king, wearing kidaris and kandys, in kneeling-running stance right, holding spear in right hand, bow in left; ΔH to left, grain ear to lower right / Incuse rectangle, containing pattern possibly depicting relief map of the hinterland of Ephesos. Johnston, Earliest 30 (same obv. die); Meadows, Administration 328 var. (legend); Mildenberg, Münzwesen, Group 6.2; Traité II 75 (Memnon of Rhodes); BMC Ionia p. 323, 2; Sunrise 71. Good VF, toned, some roughness.

From the collection of the MoneyMuseum, Zurich. Ex Leu 76 [Exceptional Private Collection] (27 October 1999), lot 188; Münzen und Medaillen AG 47 (30 November 1972), lot 536.

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.