Didrachm

Tenedos occupied a strategically uncomfortable position — a small island at the mouth of the Hellespont whose control over merchant traffic between the Aegean and the Black Sea made it perpetually interesting to larger powers. The island changed hands repeatedly between Athens, Sparta, and Persia during the fourth century, and its coinage reflects periods of autonomous minting that correlate closely with moments of relative independence between those pressures.

The didrachm standard used here aligns with the broader Chian weight system common among Aegean island mints of this period, rather than the Attic standard dominant on the mainland.