Shekel

Tyre's shekels of this period functioned as the dominant commercial currency across the Levantine coast and into the Persian-controlled interior, their silver purity trusted by merchants from Egypt to Mesopotamia. The Phoenician cities operated under Achaemenid suzerainty but retained the right to strike their own coinage — a practical concession by Persia, which needed reliable hard currency to pay tribute and finance regional administration.

Betlyon's cataloguing of this type identified distinct magistrate sequences that allow closer dating within the roughly thirty-year span of production.