Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
Hekte
| Issuer | Kyzikos |
|---|---|
| Year | 550 BC - 450 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Round (irregular) |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Janiform head composed of a facing-left nymph wearing a stephanos and a facing-right satyr, their profiles conjoined back-to-back in archaic style. Below the janiform head, a tunny fish swims to the right, serving as the characteristic Kyzikene civic emblem and die-control device. The design is rendered in the bold, archaic Greek tradition characteristic of Kyzikos electrum coinage of the sixth and fifth centuries BC. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Plain |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Kyzikos dominated Black Sea trade routes during this period and paid for much of that commerce in electrum hektai — the fractional sixth-stater that functioned as the workhorse denomination of the Aegean mercantile economy. The city's issues were so trusted that they circulated well beyond Mysia, appearing in hoards from Egypt to the northern Pontic coast.
Von Fritze 76 falls within the broad series distinguished by the tunny fish, Kyzikos's persistent reverse type across nearly a century of production — a mark of civic identity that also served as an authentication device in markets far from the mint.