1/2 Shekel

Sidon operated as the dominant Phoenician city under Achaemenid administration during this period, its mint producing coinage primarily to fund Persian military and naval operations — Sidonian ships formed the backbone of the Persian fleet, and the city's coinage circulated far beyond the Levantine coast as a result. The half shekel denomination served practical transactional needs where the full shekel was too large.

Betlyon's sequencing places this type early in the Sidonian series, before the city's eventual destruction by Artaxerxes III in 345 BC following a failed revolt.