Ancient drachma

In ancient Greece, the drachma (drachmḗ, drakhmέː; pl. drachmae or drachmas) was an ancient currency unit issued by many city-states during a period of ten centuries, from the Archaic period throughout the Classical period, the Hellenistic period up to the Roman period under Greek Imperial Coinage. The ancient drachma originated in the Greece around the 6th century BC. The coin, usually made of silver or sometimes gold had its origins in a bartering system that referred to a drachma as a handful of wooden spits or arrows. The drachma was unique to each city state that minted them, and were sometimes circulated all over the Mediterranean. The coinage of Athens was considered to be the strongest and became the most popular. The name drachma is derived from the verb δράσσομαι (drássomai, "(I) grasp"). It is believed that the same word with the meaning of "handful" or "handle" is found in Linear B tablets of the Mycenean Pylos. Initially a drachma was a fistful (a "grasp") of six oboloí or obeloí (metal sticks, literally "spits") originally used for roasting lamb. With anthropological evidence it is believed that the oboloi were used as a form of early currency, beginning around 1100 BC and being a form of "bullion": bronze, copper, or iron ingots denominated by weight in a developed barter system. The earliest of these obeloi were found In Palaepahos, Cyprus in a Geometric grave. Anthropological evidence suggests that obeloi were used in burials of warrior elite or in the grave's of people with high social status. A hoard of over 150 rod-shaped obeloi was uncovered at Heraion of Argos in Peloponnese. Six of them are displayed at the Numismatic Museum of Athens.Despite earlier evidence of poorly preserved specimen, the obeloi discovered at Argos were the first found completely intact. The drachma was the standard unit of silver coinage at most ancient Greek mints, and the name obol was used to describe a coin that was one-sixth of a drachma.