Obol - Ardashir I

Ardashir I founded the Sasanian dynasty by defeating and killing Artabanus IV of the Parthians at the Battle of Hormozdgan in 224 AD, ending nearly five centuries of Arsacid rule. These tiny silver obols belong to his later emission groups, struck after he had consolidated control from Mesopotamia to Bactria and was actively dismantling Parthian administrative and monetary conventions. The denomination itself is a Greek survival, inherited through layers of Seleucid and Parthian numismatic tradition that Ardashir retained even while building an aggressively new Persian identity.

The SNS Iran reference places this piece within a tightly defined die study grouping.