Didrachm

Chios maintained a remarkable degree of commercial independence throughout the fifth century BC, operating its own mint and issuing silver on the Chian standard — a weight standard distinct from both the Attic and Aeginetan systems that dominated much of the Greek world. This placed Chian coinage in an awkward but commercially viable position, accepted across Aegean trade routes precisely because the island's wine and merchant shipping were indispensable to regional commerce.

Mavrogordato's 1918 study of Chian coinage remains the foundational die analysis for this series, and the 26a classification indicates a specific obverse die pairing documented within that sequence.