2x 200. Mysia, Kyzikos EL Hekte. Circa 500-450 BC. Half-length bust of a winged female deity or spirit to left, wearing kekryphalos headdress, round earring and long-sleeved chiton, in her right hand holding a tunny fish by the tail, and raising a flower to her chin / Quadripartite incuse square. Von Fritze 75; cf. Boston MFA 1448 = Warren 1519 (stater); SNG BN 206. 2.70g, 10mm. Very Fine.
300
Superb Archaic Head of Poseidon
4x 201. Mysia, Kyzikos EL Hekte. Circa 500-450 BC. Bearded head of Poseidon to left, wearing a helmet in the form of the head of a sea monster; below, tunny fish to right / Quadripartite incuse square. Von Fritze -; cf. Hurter & Liewald, SNR 81 (2002), p. 28, no. 17; SNG Aulock 7291. 2.70g, 11mm. Good Extremely Fine; unusually complete. Extremely Rare.
3,000
The male head on this coin has been variously identified as a nameless hero, Perseus wearing a griffin skin helmet, or Herakles wearing a lion skin. Other specimens of the type have revealed that the helmet in fact bears a fin-like crest and pointed ears (which on the present coin are off the flan). It has therefore seems that the headdress is actually in the form of a ketos, one of the familiar sea monsters of Greek myth which is most frequently seen on Sicilian coinage, in particular that of Katane and Syracuse. Given that the bearded head is less likely to represent Perseus (who appears beardless, as on von Fritze 65) it could well be Herakles, who killed a ketos in the course of rescuing the Trojan princess Hesione, daughter of Laomedon and sister of Priam. According to some versions of the myth, Herakles was swallowed whole by the monster, and slew it by hacking at its innards for three days until it died, by which time he had lost all his hair. Perhaps during the course of this contest, Herakles temporarily misplaced his trademark lion skin headdress, and resorted to covering his baldness with a nice ketos skin hat. We must bear in mind however that Kyzikene electrum is more frequently influenced by religion (and, it has been supposed, by cult images in particular) than by myth, and so we must look elsewhere for a positive identification - given the marine monster, Poseidon is a prime candidate. Although the god is more frequently encountered with a trident attribute to facilitate identification, a ketos headdress attribute is also appropriate. F. Catalli (Monete Etrusche, Roma 1990, p. 90) included in his work an image of the remarkable Volterra kelebe which depicts a very similar god head wearing a ketos, which though formally identified as Hades, must in fact be Poseidon due to the presence on the one side of a marine monster, and on the other of a bridled horse – both symbols of the God of the Sea. This identification is confirmed by the Etruscan coinage – see Vecchi, Etruscan Coinage I, part 1 pp. 319-321, nos. 2-4 – on these coins we find an identical head identified as Nethuns (Neptune-Poseidon), paired with a reverse showing a hippocamp and border of waves.
Unique as a Stater
2x
2x
202. Mysia, Kyzikos EL Stater. Circa 500-450 BC. Janiform head of nymph wearing stephane, and satyr; tunny fish below to right / Quadripartite incuse square. Cf. Von Fritze 76 (hekte); cf. Greenwell 47 (hekte); cf. Boston MFA 1426 = Warren 1466 (hekte); SNG France -; BMC -. 16.10g, 19mm. Good Very Fine. Apparently unique and unpublished.
10,000
This beautiful coin appears to be the only stater denomination of this issue known to have survived. Unusually for Kyzikene electrum, rather than faithfully reproducing the type in larger scale, on this design the two heads’ positions are reversed, with the nymph now on the right, and the satyr on the left.
58