Phaistos, one of the great Minoan palace cities of south-central Crete, had long ceased to be a political power by the time these staters were struck — the city was destroyed by Gortyn sometime in the early third century, making this issue among the final expressions of an independent Phaistian civic coinage. The relatively tight twenty-year window assigned to this type reflects the compressed end of the city's autonomous minting history.
The piece appears in several foundational reference collections, including the Lockett and Weber assemblies, both of which were built when Cretan civic coinages were poorly understood and rarely separated from broader Aegean groupings.
Phaistos, one of the great Minoan palace cities of south-central Crete, had long ceased to be a political power by the time these staters were struck — the city was destroyed by Gortyn sometime in the early third century, making this issue among the final expressions of an independent Phaistian civic coinage. The relatively tight twenty-year window assigned to this type reflects the compressed end of the city's autonomous minting history.
The piece appears in several foundational reference collections, including the Lockett and Weber assemblies, both of which were built when Cretan civic coinages were poorly understood and rarely separated from broader Aegean groupings.