Before struck coinage, value moved as silver bullion (hacksilber), bent bars, and Elamite weight-pieces. Lydian electrum staters reached the Iranian plateau via Anatolian trade in the 7th century BCE.
The Iranian plateau used weighed silver and bronze for centuries before adopting struck coins. The Median Empire (c. 678–550 BCE) traded with Lydia and the Greek world but minted no coins of its own.
The earliest coins circulating in the region were Lydian electrum staters of Alyattes and Croesus, featuring the lion's head — a motif that would echo through later Persian iconography.
King Alyattes
ObverseRoaring lion's head right with sun-burst on forehead.
ReverseTwo incuse square punches.
Earliest coins to reach Persian markets; the prototype Achaemenid coinage would later replace.
ObverseCut and chiselled fragments.
Reverse—
Pre-monetary silver weighed against grain standards; recovered from Nush-i Jan and Tepe Hasanlu hoards.
King Croesus (Kroisos)
ObverseConfronted foreparts of a lion and a bull — the canonical Kroiseid type.
ReverseTwo square incuse punches of unequal size.
Croesus, last king of Lydia, replaced the older electrum coinage with the world's first true bimetallic system in pure gold and pure silver — a model the Achaemenid daric/siglos would inherit a generation later.