1/2 Ma'ah-Obol Judea

Yehud Medinata — Aramaic for "Province of Judah" — was a small administrative unit within the Achaemenid Empire's fifth satrapy, "Beyond the River." The decision to allow local coinage was a Persian administrative convenience, not a grant of autonomy; the same policy applied across dozens of subject territories. These fractional silver pieces circulated in an economy still transitioning away from commodity silver weighed by the shekel.

At roughly 0.3g, this denomination sits at the practical lower limit of hand-struck silver coinage — any lighter and the blank becomes nearly unworkable at the die.