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Drachm
| Issuer | Ephesos |
|---|---|
| Year | 510 BC - 500 BC |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | 3.41 g |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Irregular incuse square punch occupying the greater part of the reverse field, produced by the strike of the reverse die during hammered manufacture. The incuse displays a rough, striated texture with no figurative or inscriptional design, consistent with early archaic Greek coinage practice where the reverse served purely as a mechanical countermark to fix the blank during striking. The surface within the punch shows irregular granular relief typical of this transitional period of Greek silver coinage. |
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| Mint | Ephesos |
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| Additional information |
Ephesos sat at the commercial crossroads between the Greek world and the Lydian interior, and its early coinage reflects that position directly — the city had absorbed the concept of struck coinage from Lydia itself, where the technology originated barely a generation earlier. By the late sixth century, Ephesian silver was circulating across Ionian trade networks at a moment when the region was under Achaemenid Persian suzerainty following Cyrus's conquest of Croesus's kingdom in 547 BC.
The stater denomination dominated Ephesian output; drachms at this fractional weight served smaller transactions and are considerably scarcer in the archaeological record than their larger counterparts.