318, Lot: 476. Estimate $200. Sold for $300. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

EGYPT, Alexandria. Hadrian. AD 117-138. BI Tetradrachm (24mm, 13.56 g, 12h). Dated RY 5 (AD 120/1). Laureate bust right, slight drapery; crescent below chin / Hadrian, togate, seated left on curule chair, resting his right hand on altar(?); L–Є (date) across upper field. Köln –; Dattari (Savio) 1266 and 7366; K&G –; Emmett 840 (R5); Milne 991a. VF, toned, light porosity. Very rare.

Emmett and Milne describe the reverse type as emperor “resting right hand on altar,” and the listing for Dattari 1266 gives the reverse type as similar to Dattari 1264, which is listed as “Imperatore in quadriga al passo a.d.” The attribution here to Dattari 1266 is based on the plates (no. 63) published by Giulio Bernardi in 2007. Dattari owned a second example, also plated, and assigned no. 7366. The so-called “altar” does not look like any ancient altar this cataloguer is familiar with, and indeed, looks more like a small obelisk. It has a rectangular base decorated with dots, or perhaps an animal skin, and the triangular pediment contains a single pellet. Hadrian is resting his right hand on the peak of this pediment.