page_title: Coin
section_title: Lydian and Ionian electrum coins (circa 600 BCE)
hierarchical_section_title: Coin / History / Lydian and Ionian electrum coins (circa 600 BCE)
caption_attribution_description: English: KINGS of LYDIA. Alyattes. Circa 620-10-564-53 BC
context_page_description: A coin is a small, flat, round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by a government. Coins often have images, numerals, or text on them. Obverse and its opposite, reverse, refer to the two flat faces of coins and medals. In this usage, obverse means the front face of the object and reverse means the back face. The obverse of a coin is commonly called heads, because it often depicts the head of a prominent person, and the reverse tails.
  Coins are usually metal or an alloy, or sometimes made of manmade materials. They are usually disc shaped. Coins made of valuable metal are stored in large quantities as bullion coins. Other coins are used as money in everyday transactions, circulating alongside banknotes. Usually the highest value coin in circulation is worth less than the lowest-value note. In the last hundred years, the face value of circulation coins has occasionally been lower than the value of the metal they contain, for example due to inflation.
context_section_description: The earliest coins are mostly associated with Iron Age Anatolia of the late 7th century BCE, and especially with the kingdom of Lydia. Early electrum coins (a variable mix of gold and silver, typically with a ratio of about 54% gold to 44% silver) were not standardized in weight, and in their earliest stage may have been ritual objects, such as badges or medals, issued by priests. The unpredictability of the composition of naturally occurring electrum implied that it had a variable value, which greatly hampered its development.
  Most of the early Lydian coins include no writing ("legend" or "inscription"), only an image of a symbolic animal. Therefore, the dating of these coins relies primarily on archaeological evidence, with the most commonly cited evidence coming from excavations at the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, also called the Ephesian Artemision (which would later evolve into one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World), site of the earliest known deposit of electrum coins. Because the oldest lion head "coins" were discovered in that temple, and they do not appear to have been used in commerce, these objects may not have been coins but badges or medals issued by the priests of that temple. Anatolian Artemis was the Πὀτνια Θηρῶν (Potnia Thêrôn, "Mistress of Animals"), whose symbol was the stag. It took some time before ancient coins were used for commerce and trade. Even the smallest-denomination electrum coins, perhaps worth about a day's subsistence, would have been too valuable for buying a loaf of bread. Maybe the first coins to be used for retailing on a large-scale basis were likely small silver fractions, Hemiobol, Ancient Greek coinage minted by the Ionian Greeks in the late sixth century BCE.
  In contrast Herodotus mentioned the innovation made by the Lydians:
  "So far as we have any knowledge, they [the Lydians] were the first people to introduce the use of gold and silver coins, and the first who sold goods by retail"
  — Herodotus, I94
  Many early Lydian and Greek coins were minted under the authority of private individuals and are thus more akin to tokens or badges than to modern coins, though due to their numbers it is evident that some were official state issues. The earliest inscribed coins are those of Phanes, dated to 625–600 BC from Ephesus in Ionia, with the legend ΦΑΝΕΟΣ ΕΜΙ ΣΗΜΑ (or similar) (“I am the badge of Phanes”), or just bearing the name ΦΑΝΕΟΣ (“of Phanes”).
  The first electrum coins issued by a monarch are those minted by king Alyattes of Lydia (died c. 560 BCE), for which reason this king is sometimes mentioned as the originator of coinage.
caption: Coin of Alyattes of Lydia. Circa 620/10-564/53 BCE.
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