Stater

The Lycian League predates the better-known federal coinage of the Classical period by centuries, and these early staters were being struck while Lycia itself was nominally under Achaemenid Persian suzerainty following Cyrus's conquest of Anatolia in the 540s BC. Persian political control over the region was real but administratively loose, which is precisely why local dynastic and league coinage was tolerated — Tehran had no interest in micromanaging Lycian commercial life as long as tribute arrived.

The fabric on these early issues tends toward the thick and dumpy, a characteristic of archaic Anatolian minting practice rather than any production deficiency.