MYSIA. Kyzikos. Circa 500-450 BC. Stater (Electrum, 20 mm, 16.10 g, 12 h). Forepart of a bearded, man-headed bull to right; to left, tunny upward. Rev. Quadripartite incuse square. BMC 82. Boston MFA 1491 = Warren 1468. Gulbenkian -. Jameson 2202. SNG Paris 320. SNG von Aulock -. Von Fritze I, 174. Very rare and quite possibly the finest known example. Boldly struck, perfectly centered and magnificently preserved. A few tiny marks, otherwise, good extremely fine.


The man-headed bull on this Kyzikene stater is closely derived from the celebrated coinage of Gela in Sicily, where the forepart of the bearded androcephalic bull represented Gelas, the river-god from whom the city took its name. The correspondence is particularly striking with Gela’s later tetradrachms of circa 420-415 BC, on
which the bull appears in essentially the same right-facing form beneath the legend ΓΕΛΑΣ (see Jenkins 475).