I've been focused on the Athenian owl and its numerous eastern imitations. Although hoards of Athenian owls have been found in the west, I know of no owl imitations from the western Mediterranean region. Very recently a group of eastern owls have appeared on the market, including some of the Satrap Mazakes. So, here are the two owls, apparently from a recent hoard coming out of Iran: Persia, imitating Athens, tetradrachm, 4th century BC. 23mm; 16.92 grams. This owl is an imitation that I have not seen until the appearance of this hoard. There is clearly a profile figure on Athena's cheek on the obverse, which is part of the die, not a countermark. The reverse has the traditional arrangement of the crescent moon, olive leaves to the left, and the ethnic AOE to the right of a facing owl. The A is rotated to resemble what seems to be an Aramaic B (beth). What does this obverse profile represent? It must be some kind of symbol of issuing authority, sanctioning the owl's circulation within a region or perhaps city, in Persia I would guess. This owl is apparently unlisted - at least I have not been successful in my searches so far to find similar examples. In terms of condition, the surfaces are what one would expect with a hoard coin: deposits of horn silver and some minor porosity. The die work, while local in nature, is not bad for an imitation of the Athenian pi style owls circulating in the region in the fourth century BC. The next owl is more straightforward. Persia/Egypt, imitating Athens, tetradrachm, Mazakes, 4th century BC. 20mm; 16.78 grams. As I mentioned some of the owls listed were issued by the Persian Satrap of Egypt, Mazakes, who succeeded Sabakes in 333 BC. Following his capitulation to Alexander III, Mazakes was shortly replaced by Alexander III with Cleomenes of Naucratis, marking the end of the short–lived second Egyptian satrapy (343–332 BC) . Mazakes might have been named Satrap of Mesopotamia by Alexander, but this is not conclusive. Apparently coins with his name were produced in Mesopotamia, according to Wikipedia. The owls of Mazakes vary in style judging from from the auction circuit and retail sellers online. I am by no means an authority on his coinage, but I can say with a good degree of certainty that his owls are generally the most available of the three Persian Satraps of Egypt issuing owls in the fourth century BC: Artaxerxes III (very rare), Sabakes, who died in the Battle of Issus in 333 BC (rare) and Mazakes (scarce). As with other ancient coins, the owls of Mazakes often lack evidence of his name on the reverse. In some cases owls with a certain style are attributed to Mazakes. The owl above has some signs of his name on the reverse, upon close examination. The die work is clearly cruder, compared to the first owl. The obverse die shows wear, and the owl, while quite bold, is also very crude. Could this owl be one of Mazakes' Mesopotamian issues? Horn silver is present on both sides, typical of a hoard coin.
Here's a follow-up. Earlier today I was able to obtain photos of the group. The quality of the photos isn't great, but I was able to make them a little shaper. The vast majority are owls, with a smaller representation of Babylonian staters of Seleucus I Nicator and a few others from Byblos.
Very curious... Of course the pictures of the whole lot are not sharp, but it seems to me - is it just me ? - that there are at least two groups of double die linked coins : the red group and the yellow group. Your Greek legend tetradrachm is nr.2 of the yellow group, your aramaic (?) legend tetradrachm is the one to the left of the yellow group, and seems to be obv. die linked with nr. 2, 4 and 6 of the second row. Of course I cannot be 100% sure... But it's bizarre. When many die links are found within a hoard, it means the coins did not circulate much, if they circulated at all, and that the hoard was found not very far of the minting place. That's curious for a hoard including coins from different mints (Babylon, Tyre, etc.), some with circulation marks. And what I find most problematic is that so many double die links do not correspond to the known minting procedures of 4th c. BC mints (Athenian or imitative). Could these coins be very well-made modern fakes, trying to imitate a 4th c. BC hoard like the Iraq hoard, for example?
Thank you for the comments. Yes, the photos are blurry, and I apologize for the lack of sharpness. That's the way the photos were when the seller sent them to me. I tried to make them sharper, but there are limits to what I can do. The coins in the photos are the ones that the seller selected from a larger group. It seems that many of the coins were just too encrusted and corroded to consider. So, I don't how large the group was. I don't even know if Iran was the find location. The coins could have come from elsewhere and assembled as a group by a collector or middleman. The die matches are very interesting, but since I am not very knowledgeable about hoards in general I cannot comment on how unusual the die matches in this group are. I know that die matches were made with the owls of the 1989 Syria Hoard, and they are grouped by type. Die matches abound with the Athenian standardized classical owls. It will be very interesting to see what develops with these and other imitative owls. I guess there is always a chance that the hoard is comprised of fakes, but I can say this: The horn silver that encrusts areas of my two owls from this group is very dense and dark, very wax-like in places and quite thick in spots. I have seen this type of horn silver on other ancient coins. I think that it would be difficult to achieve artificial horn silver deposits quickly. These deposits built up over thousands of years of exposure to climatic and environmental elements, and they are the product of a chemical alteration of the coin's surfaces. Taken to an extreme the alteration results in a leaching of the copper, creating a brittle coin, what a lattice crystalized surface that can be easily shattered, especially for smaller and thinner silver ancient coins. It is possible to buy "horn silver" on the market, in powder form, but it does not lend itself to achieving the dense nature of horn silver deposits encountered on hoard coins. I have a packet, and I have experimented with creating a solution comprised of horn silver. It is not easy. The powder is not easily soluble, and powder itself is too granular and of a dark brown shade, not the dense black deposits that we see on ancient coins. There is one owl with thick green deposits and corrosion on the obverse. The green deposits are probably due to the coin's contact with an object or soil conditions with high copper content, such as bronze.
