Stater

Kydonia, on the northwest coast of Crete, maintained its own mint with stubborn independence well into the Hellenistic period, long after many neighboring cities had abandoned autonomous coinage. The stater series to which this piece belongs spans roughly half a century of continuous local production — an unusual run for a city of its size and political exposure, given the repeated territorial pressures Kydonia faced from Knossos and later from external Macedonian influence filtering through the island.

Svoronos remains the foundational reference for Cretan coinage, his classification still unchallenged in most particulars for this series.