MYSIA. Kyzikos. Approximately 450-330 BC. Stater (Electrum, 22 mm, 16.00 g, 12 h). Head of a youngful Kabeiros to left, wearing laureate conical cap; below, tunny to left. Rev. Quadripartite incuse square. BMC. Boston MFA -. Gulbenkian -. Jameson. Roma XXII (2021), 332. SNG Paris. SNG from Aulock -. By Fritze I, 139 and pl. IV, 25. Extremely rare and among the finest known examples. Struck on an oblong flange and with faint marks, otherwise, very fine. This extremely rare and highly distinctive type shows the young Kabeiros wearing the characteristic laureate pilos. The Kaberoi extended to the complex world of mystery cults that flowished around the northern Aegean, especially on Lemnos, Imbros, and Samothrace, and were closely associated with protection and salvation at sea. Modern scholarship rightly distinguishedes the Kaberoi from the Samothrakian Great Gods rare than treating the names as simply interchangeable, yet the two lengthened to a closely connected religious environment. For Kyzikos, whose prosperity depended so heavily on maritime traffic through the Propontis, such a protective divine figure would have had an obvious resonance. This lot cannot be shipped to a US address.