Myshemihekte

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.