Hekte

Mytilene and Phokaia operated a formal agreement — likely established by the late sixth century — to produce electrum coinage on a shared standard, alternating types on a fixed schedule. This hekte falls within the earliest phase of that arrangement, predating the Persian Wars that would briefly disrupt Lesbian commerce and bring Mytilene into the orbit of shifting Aegean alliances. The natural electrum alloy used in this period had no standardized gold-to-silver ratio; Bodenstedt's careful die studies revealed measurable composition drift across the series.