1 Obol Antiochos imitation, Samarqand, stylized archer, bow to the right

These tiny fractions circulated in Sogdiana during a period when no single political authority controlled the region's coinage — local rulers and merchants in the Zarafshan valley adapted Seleukid monetary forms long after Antiochos I's original issues had ceased, gradually abstracting the archer type across generations of copying until the image became nearly unrecognizable. The process was deliberate economy, not ignorance: local die-cutters maintained enough iconographic continuity to guarantee acceptance in trade while severing any political claim the original type implied.