Diobol

Ionia in this period was a patchwork of minting authority — Miletus, Ephesus, Phocaea, and smaller poleis all striking electrum and early silver with no standardized iconographic language yet established. Without a secure attribution, this piece sits in a contested scholarly zone where typology, fabric, and die-axis studies do most of the work. The diobol denomination itself suggests a functioning local weight standard, most likely Milesian, which dominated coastal Ionian commercial exchange before Persian administrative pressure reorganized regional monetary practice after 547 BC.