Asia Minor

The earliest roots of the Greek settlement of Asia Minor date back to the middle of the second millennium BC: Mycenaean Greeks lived in cities like Miletus and Ephesus. Greek Ionians and Dorians began in the 11th and 10th century a colonization of the west coast of Asia Minor and later on the northern shores of the Black Sea. The commonly used classification in landscapes such as Troas, Ionia and Lydia go back to these migratory movements and show the growing influence of the Greeks in the eastern Mediterranean.

Asia Minor is commonly considered the birthplace of coinage: Probably in the course of the 7th cent. BC small balls of electron without further adornment came into use. The metal is present as a natural alloy of silver and gold in the rivers of Asia Minor. Whether it was the Ionian Greeks or their eastern neighbors - the Lydians - who were the first to use these items for payment transactions, can no longer be determined today. But the Lydian king Kroisos (around 560 - 546 BC) - until today the proverbial epitome of wealth - introduced for the first time in the history of money a bimetallic currency in gold and silver. In later times, Asia Minor is known above all for its numerous coinages in silver, among which the imitations of the tetradrachms of Alexander the Great are certainly the most widely known.