Kings of Macedon. Alexander III ‘The Great’ (Circa 326-323 BC)

AR Tetradrachm

25 mm, 16.98 g

Damaskos Mint. Struck under Menon or Menes.

Obverse: Head of Herakles to right, wearing lion skin headdress.

Reverse: AΛEΞANΔPOY, Zeus seated left on low throne, holding long scepter in his left hand and eagle standing right with closed wings in his right; to left, forepart of a ram to right; below throne, ΔA (short for Damaskos), one dot below diphros.

Price 3203.

Unlike most of Alexander’s mints, Damaskos had no prior history of coinage production. It produced a single denomination of coinage, the tetradrachm, readily distinguished from other mints by the letters ΔA , signifying the abbreviated name of the city, placed beneath the diphros on the reverse.

Newell identified two series in the mint’s output. Series 1, which carries a vertically oriented mint control on the reverse left field, and Series 2, which is characterized by the presence of the forepart of a ram in a similar position. The imperial mint at Damaskos used up to six striking teams. Inconspicuous patterns of one to six small dots, used as secondary mint controls, may have served to identify the coins struck on each anvil.

The life of the mint was limited to a brief period in the last years of Alexander III’s lifetime, during which time it produced an estimated 1.22 million tetradrachms. Based on conservative estimates of die life and the closely die linked interwoven nature of coinage, it is inferred that the mint may have operated for little more than a year after its establishment. Its coinage then dispersed rapidly to the west, arguably consistent with the dispersal pattern of military payments made to demobilized Greek veterans at the end of their service to Alexander the Great.