A Map of Ionia?

279, Lot: 102. Estimate $150. Sold for $110. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

IONIA, Achaemenid Period. Uncertain satrap. Circa 350-333 BC. Æ (9mm, 0.81 g, 3h). Persian king or hero in kneeling-running stance right, holding spear and bow / Incuse relief map of the hinterland of Ephesos(?). Johnston, Earliest Æ 1-3; Mildenberg, Münzwesen pp. 25-26 and pl. XIII, 112; BMC 7. Near VF, green patina, earthen deposits.

From an interesting series with a recurring incuse reverse design that Johnston interpreted as a relief map of the hinterland of Ephesos, which if it is, would be the earliest Greek map and first physical relief map known. On the right (or north, very faint on the current specimen) 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 under the Persian general Memnon at Ephesos, 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.