Kyzikos Electrum Hekte — Athena & Tunny

Specimen · kyzikos-athena-electrum-hekte-001

The Coin

Obverse — head of Athena left in crested helmet; tunny fish below

Reverse — quadripartite incuse square of archaic mill-sail form

Detail — Finding the tunny — annotated photo (not a tag). The die certainly carries a tunny below Athena's neck truncation (so the Von Fritze I 67 type definition and CNG's cataloguing of this very coin: 'head of Athena left on tunny left'), but on this worn strike the reading is honestly difficult: the red circle marks the area whose comb-like vertical strokes are taken as the fish's fin-rays. Whether those strokes really are the fish is an open thread — compare the two well-struck coins under Related Coin Images, where the tunny is unmistakable

Attribution: Asia Minor (Mysia). Kyzikos. Polis of Kyzikos. c. 550–490 BC (dealer tag; the type is bracketed as broadly as c. 550–450 BC in some catalogues). EL. hekte (sixth stater).

Obverse: Head of Athena left, wearing crested helmet; below, tunny fish left — the civic badge of Kyzikos

Reverse: Quadripartite incuse square of archaic 'mill-sail' form

Weight: 2.67 g (tag) (From Bezayiff tag; not re-weighed. Normal weight for the Kyzikene hekte (c. 2.6–2.7 g).) Reference: Von Fritze I 67

Related Coin Images

Related2 — Comparison — the badge on a sharper die: an electrum hekte of Kyzikos of the same period (c. 550–475 BC), helmeted head on a tunny — the same composition as this coin’s Athena, with the fish’s body and fin-rays clearly visible below the neck truncation. Staatliche Münzsammlung, Munich.
Image source & licence
Photo: ArchaiOptix, Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, reproduced unmodified; the museum asks that commercial reuse be cleared with it.

Related3 — Comparison — Athena on the tunny at stater size: an electrum stater of Kyzikos (c. 450–330 BC, Bibliothèque nationale de France) with the same Athena-head-on-tunny composition as this hekte, on a flan broad enough for the fish to read plainly.
Image source & licence
Photo: Francesco Bini, Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, reproduced unmodified.

John's Ancient Coin Collection · Specimen · kyzikos-athena-electrum-hekte-001

Image credits for this coin — photographs, maps and graphics used on this page