MYSIA. Kyzikos. Circa 450-330 BC. Stater (Electrum, 20 mm, 16.09 g, 12 h). Upper part of Gaia right, rising out of the ground and wearing sleeveless chiton, holding with both hands the nude infant Erichthonios; below, tunny to right. Rev. Quadripartite incuse square. BMC 65. Boston MFA 1500 = Warren 1449. Gulbenkian 628. Jameson 2197. SNG Paris -, cf. 304 (hekte). Von Fritze I, 157 and pl. V, 5. Very rare and among the finest known examples. Beautifully centered, with a superbly rendered mythological scene. Faint marks on the obverse, otherwise, good very fine.


This remarkable type illustrates one of the central foundation myths of Athens. Gaia rises bodily from the earth, holding the infant Erichthonios, whom she is about to entrust to Athena. The image gives visual form to the hero’s autochthony: Erichthonios was literally a child of the Attic soil and would become one of the ancestral kings of Athens. The scene was especially popular in Athenian art of the fifth century, where Gaia is similarly shown emerging from the ground and presenting the child to his divine foster-mother.

The type belongs to a distinctly Atticizing group within the electrum coinage of Kyzikos. A closely related issue depicting the serpent-bodied Kekrops beside Athena’s olive tree (see lot 1102 below) draws upon the same complex of Athenian foundation myths. Their appearance at Kyzikos is particularly striking in light of the city’s long and complex political and commercial relationship with Athens throughout the Classical period.