Myshemihekte

Phokaia was among the earliest Greek cities to mint electrum coinage, and these fractional pieces — struck well before the Persian conquest of Ionia in 546 BC disrupted the city's commercial networks — circulated across a trading world that stretched from the Black Sea to the western Mediterranean. The Phokaians were aggressive colonists; they founded Massalia around 600 BC and Alalia in Corsica shortly after, and small electrum fractions like this would have moved through those channels.

The natural alloy used by Phokaia had a consistently higher silver content than Lydian electrum, giving their coins a paler color that ancient merchants learned to distinguish by sight.