Obol - Ardashir I type IV

Ardashir I founded the Sasanian dynasty by defeating and killing the last Arsacid king, Artabanus IV, at the Battle of Hormozdgan in 224 AD — the same year this coinage type begins. The obol denomination itself is a survival of Hellenistic monetary tradition absorbed through centuries of Parthian practice, still circulating in the eastern provinces long after Greek political power had vanished.

Type IV sits late in Ardashir's classificatory sequence, suggesting a mint administration already beginning to standardize the iconographic program that would define Sasanian coinage for the next four centuries.