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Stater
| Issuer | Kyzikos |
|---|---|
| Year | 500 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 | 16.00 g |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
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| Technique | Log in to see details |
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| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Herakles depicted nude in the archaic kneeling-running pose (the so-called 'knielauf' convention), facing right, his right arm raised overhead brandishing a club while his left arm extends forward grasping a bow. A tunny fish, the civic badge of Kyzikos, is placed vertically in the field behind the figure with its head upward, serving as the characteristic ethnic symbol of the mint. The rendering is rendered in confident archaic Greek style with careful attention to musculature. No legend or inscription appears in the field. |
|---|---|
| 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 |
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| Additional information |
Kyzikos, the Propontic city on the southern shore of the Marmara, issued electrum staters in a near-continuous stream from the sixth century well into the fourth, and the series functioned less as civic coinage than as a trusted international trading currency across the Greek world and beyond. The natural alloy of gold and silver from the Pactolus region gave each piece a composition that varied slightly — a fact Kyzikene merchants apparently absorbed without issue, since the coins circulated by weight and reputation rather than precise fineness.
The type catalogued under Von Fritze 107 belongs to the mature archaic phase of the series, when the reverse tunny fish — the city's persistent guarantor mark — was already a well-established authentication device recognized from the Black Sea to the Aegean.