Hekte

Mytilene's electrum hektai were struck under a highly unusual civic arrangement: the city issued them in matched obverse-reverse pairs, with each new emission introducing a fresh combination of types, a practice sustained across roughly two centuries of production. Bodenstedt catalogued 114 such pairings, making this one of the most systematically documented electrum series in Greek numismatics. The natural alloy sourced from the region gave these coins a gold content hovering around 43–46%, somewhat lower than Lydian electrum, a variation detectable through specific gravity testing.