Kyzikos (BC 500-450) EL Stater

ca 500-450 BC. EL Stater (16.02g, 19mm). Sphinx seated with curved pointed wings, with 'lock of immortality' on head, crouching to left, with right forepaw raised, tunny fish below swimming left / Quadripartite incuse square. VF. Carr coll.

Obverse is from a previously unpublished die with sphinx not standing on tunny, but separated above. The cataloguer notes: “The so called 'lock of immortality', rendered as a spiral tendril or plume on the head of the sphinx, is a device with Egyptian roots that appears on similar images across the Near East.”