Hekte

Kyzikos, the prosperous Propontis city-state, dominated electrum coinage production across much of the fifth and fourth centuries BC precisely because the region had reliable access to naturally occurring electrum from Lydian river sources. The hekte — one-sixth of a stater — functioned as the workhorse denomination of this coinage, and Kyzikan electrum circulated far beyond the Propontis into Aegean and Black Sea trade networks, turning up in hoards from Egypt to the Crimea.

The city struck an extraordinary variety of reverse types across this period, with the tunny fish appearing as a near-constant identifying element. No two obverse types repeat, which has made systematic die study — reflected in the density of references this piece carries — an ongoing scholarly project since Von Fritze's foundational 1912 corpus.