Two Choice Serapis & Isis Tetradrachms

CNG 108, Lot: 392. Estimate $20000. Sold for $23000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

PTOLEMAIC KINGS of EGYPT. Ptolemy IV Philopator. 222-205/4 BC. AR Tetradrachm (26mm, 14.08 g, 12h). Alexandreia mint. Struck circa 217-215/0 BC. Jugate draped busts right of Serapis and Isis / BAΣIΛEΩΣ ΠTOΛEMAIOY, eagle standing left, head right, on thunderbolt; filleted double cornucopia over shoulder, ΣE between legs. Svoronos –; Landvatter Group 5, 74a (O23/R64) = E. T. Newell, Two Recent Egyptian Hoards, ANSNNM 33 (1927), p. 4, 4 (this coin, illustrated in Landvatter); SNG Copenhagen –; Noeske –; ANS 1944.100.77211 (same obv. die); A. Hess AG 253, lot 282 = Ars Classica XIII, lot 950 (same obv. die). Choice EF, attractively toned. Excellent metal and an impeccable pedigree. Extremely rare issue at Alexandria, Landvatter notes only four examples (noted above, plus one in the BN), from one obverse and two reverse dies.

Ex Dr. W. Schink Collection (Spink Zürich 20, 6 October 1986), lot 409; Hess-Leu 36 (17 April 1986), lot 285; Ars Classica X (15 June 1925), lot 1629; 1922 Delta Hoard (IGCH 1690).

This type is thought to have been issued in celebration of the Ptolemaic victory over the Seleukids at the battle of Raphia during the Fourth Syrian War. Official propaganda proclaimed that these two deities, Serapis and Isis, had intervened on behalf of the Egyptians, saving them from defeat (see C. Lorber, “The Ptolemaic Era Coinage Revisited,” NC 2007, p. 116, and L. Bricault, “Serapis et Isis, Sauveurs de Ptolémé IV à Raphia,” Chronique d’Égypte LXXIV (1999), pp. 334-43).

Thomas Landvatter, in his die study cited above that appeared in the 2012 ANS American Journal of Numismatics (Second Series, Vol. 24, p. 88), suggests that this issue was “carrying a very specific ideological message directed more widely throughout the empire: Ptolemy IV was equating himself and his wife Arsinoe with the divine sibling-spouses Serapis and Isis.” Landvatter also notes that “[t]his was an ideological statement made during wartime, meant to have wide appeal and explicitly associate the Ptolemaic king and queen with two of the most popular deities in the Eastern Mediterranean.” Indeed, the popularity of the Serapis/Isis cult would outlive the Ptolemaic dynasty and continue well into the Roman Imperial period, only to be eventually usurped by the Christian and Muslim faiths.