MYSIA. Kyzikos. Circa 450-330 BC. Stater (Electrum, 22 mm, 16.00 g, 12 h). Head of a youthful Kabeiros to left, wearing laureate conical cap; below, tunny to left. Rev. Quadripartite incuse square. BMC -. Boston MFA -. Gulbenkian -. Jameson -. Roma XXII (2021), 332. SNG Paris -. SNG von Aulock -. Von Fritze I, 139 and pl. IV, 25. Extremely rare and among the finest known examples. Struck on an oblong flan and with faint marks, otherwise, very fine.


This extremely rare and highly distinctive type shows the youthful Kabeiros wearing the characteristic laureate pilos. The Kabeiroi belonged to the complex world of mystery cults that flourished around the northern Aegean, especially on Lemnos, Imbros, and Samothrake, and were closely associated with protection and salvation at sea. Modern scholarship rightly distinguishes the Kabeiroi from the Samothrakian Great Gods rather than treating the names as simply interchangeable, yet the two belonged to a closely connected religious environment. For Kyzikos, whose prosperity depended so heavily on maritime traffic through the Propontis, such a protective divine figure would have had an obvious resonance.