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Myshemihekte
| Issuer | Phokaia |
|---|---|
| Year | 625 BC - 522 BC |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Obverse description | Helmeted head of Athena in profile facing left, rendered in high relief with a smooth Attic-style helmet covering the skull. Immediately below the truncation of the neck, a small seal (phoke) is depicted in left profile, serving as the civic badge of Phokaia. The surfaces are characteristically smooth and convex, typical of early Archaic electrum coinage. No legends or inscriptions appear in the field. |
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| Mintage | ND (625 BC - 522 BC) |
| Additional information |
Phokaia was among the earliest Greek cities to strike coinage in electrum, a naturally occurring gold-silver alloy sourced from the riverbeds of Lydia. The hekte was the standard Phokaian denomination; this piece, at one-sixth of that, represents the fractional coinage that facilitated small transactions in a port economy heavily dependent on trade with the western Mediterranean — Phokaia's colonists had already founded Massalia (modern Marseille) by the mid-sixth century.
Bodenstedt 15 is a well-documented type within the sequence, but the series as a whole was abruptly terminated around 522 BC when the Persians tightened control over Ionian coastal cities following the earlier mass emigration of Phokaian citizens who chose exile over submission to Harpagos.