1/2 Stater - temp. Cyrus the Great 'Cyrus II of Persia'

These fractional pieces were struck at Sardis following Cyrus's conquest of Lydia around 547 BC, when Achaemenid administrators inherited and continued the Lydian minting apparatus rather than dismantling it. The Persians, having no established coinage tradition of their own at this stage, pragmatically kept local craftsmen and existing die practices in place — which is precisely why this issue so closely mirrors its pre-conquest predecessors.

Sardis remained the administrative and monetary center of the western satrapy for decades after the conquest. The die-cutters working under Persian oversight were almost certainly the same artisans who had served Croesus.