MYSIA. Kyzikos. Circa 450-330 BC. Stater (Electrum, 20 mm, 16.08 g, 12 h). Kekrops left, his body ending in a coiled serpent's tail, holding olive branch in his right hand and resting his left on his hip; below, tunny to left. Rev. Quadripartite incuse square. BMC 66. Boston MFA 1499 = Warren 1450. SNG Paris 305. Von Fritze I, 158 and pl. V, 6. Extremely rare as a stater, and among the finest known. A few faint marks, otherwise, good very fine.


This remarkable type presents Kekrops, the primordial king of Athens, in the hybrid form that expresses his autochthonous nature: a human torso rising from the coils of a serpent. Beside him stands the olive tree, Athena’s gift to the city in her contest with Poseidon and one of the most potent symbols of Athenian identity.

Together with the preceding type of Gaia presenting the infant Erichthonios (see lot 1101 above), the coin offers a complementary vision of Athenian autochthony: Erichthonios is shown as the child born from the Attic earth, while in Kekrops that same earth-born origin is embodied in the king himself. The pairing is one of the most striking examples of Attic mythological imagery within the extraordinarily varied electrum coinage of Kyzikos.