T4: Silver tetradrachm struck in western Asia Minor (?), c. 341-334 BC.

SNG Ashmolean XI 379.

Obv. Persian royal archer kneeling r. on ground line and drawing bow.

Rev. Rider with spear galloping r.; dotted border.  No legend: mint-mark ΜΟ (Greek).

14.61g. (“Chian” weight-standard).
 
This coinage was struck in large quantities somewhere in western Asia Minor between c. 360 BC and the end of Achaemenid rule in 334 BC.  The Achaemenid-style types (note especially the archer-king on the obverse) and the absence of a legend strongly suggest that this was a true Achaemenid royal coinage, like the earlier darics and sigloi.  The production of sigloi dropped substantially in the earlier fourth century, and it is likely that the royal mints in Asia Minor eventually moved over to the production of these Chian-weight coins as a reaction to the efflorescence of Chian-weight civic and satrapal coinages in the region in the mid-fourth century BC (e.g. the satrapal coinage of the Hekatomnids of Caria).  See A. Meadows in Coin Hoards IX, 210-212; A. Meadows, ‘The Chian revolution’, in Th. Faucher et al., Nomisma (2011) 273-295.