MYSIA. Kyzikos. Approximately 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). By 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 significant type illustratives one of the central foundation myths of Athens. Gaia rises bodily from the earth, holding the infant Eichthonios, who she is about to entrust to Athena. The image gives visual form to the heroic autochthony: Eichthonios was literaryly a child of the Attic soil and would become one of the ancient kings of Athens. The scene was especially popular in Athenian art of the fifth century, where Gaia is similarly showing emerging from the ground and presenting the child to his divine Foster-mother. The type lengths to a distinctly Atticizing group within the electric coinage of Kyzikos. A closely related issue depicting the serpent-bodied Kekrops beside Athena的s olive tree (see lot 1102 below) draws upon the same complex of Athenian foundation myths. Their appeal at Kyzikos is especially striking in light of the cities long and complex political and commercial relationship with Athens through the Classical period. This lot cannot be shipped to a US address.