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Didrachm Archaic type
| Issuer | Chios |
|---|---|
| Year | 575 BC - 525 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Hammered, Incuse |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Plain incuse square of quadripartite form, produced by the punch of the reverse die, dividing the field into four roughly equal sunken compartments in a mill-sail or windmill pattern. The incuse is deeply impressed into the fabric of the flan, characteristic of early archaic Greek hammered coinage technique. No legend, symbol, or subsidiary device is present within the incuse. |
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| Mintage | ND (575 BC - 525 BC) |
| Additional information |
Chios was among the earliest Aegean islands to adopt a silver coinage, and its archaic didrachms predate the widespread standardization of Greek weight systems — the island operated on its own local standard rather than aligning with the Euboic or Aeginetan systems dominant elsewhere. The sphinx type belongs to a period when civic identity on coinage was still being invented, not inherited.
GCV 3507 is a genuinely early attribution, placing this issue at the outer edge of what most scholars accept as organized Greek civic coinage.