Greek: MYSIA. Cyzicus. Ca. 500-450 BC. EL stater (19mm, 15.98 gm). NGC XF 5/5 - 3/5, light scratches....

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Ex Prospero Collection

MYSIA. Cyzicus. Ca. 500-450 BC. EL stater (19mm, 15.98 gm). NGC XF 5/5 - 3/5, light scratches. Facing Gorgoneion, head covered with writhing snakes, tongue protruding; tunny fish left below / Quadripartite incuse mill-sail square punch. Von Fritze 129, pl. IV, 15. Boston MFA 1445.

From The Cambridge Collection. Ex Prospero Collection (The New York Sale XXVII, 4 January 2012), lot 445; privately purchased from Athena, Munich 10 February 1988.

XRF analysis completed by NGC reveals the following content: 65% Au (gold), 33% Ag (silver), 2% Cu (copper).

Cyzicus was an important city on the northwestern coast of Anatolia, well positioned to take advantage of trade across and through the Sea of Marmara. Its coinage was in more or less continuous production from about 550 BC to circa AD 630, a nearly 1,200 year span unmatched by any other ancient mint. The tunny (tuna) fish was the symbol of Cyzicus from mid-6th century BC, when the city began striking electrum staters and fractions that circulated so widely the generic term for a stater became a cyzicenus. A menagerie of creatures drawn from Greek mythology appeared on its coins, among them the almost comically ferocious Gorgon seen here. The Gorgons were three sisters whose terrible visages and gaze could turn one to stone. The mythology dates back to Minoan times, where they seem to have originated as sea deities; about 700 BC, Hesiod names the three Gorgons as Stheno, Euryale and Medusa and says they were the offspring of the sea monsters Keto and Phorcys. Of the three, Medusa is shown with writhing snakes instead of hair; the other two are often depicted with grotesque grins, fang-like boar's tusks, and protruding tongues. Medusa was famously slain by the hero Perseus and her head used as a weapon to turn his enemies to stone. Images of Gorgons appear frequently in Greek art as talismans of protection, particularly on the shields of Greek soldiers and as decorations for the breastplate.

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