Drachm

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.