The hexagram was a large silver

Silver

Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

 coin

Coin

A coin is a piece of hard material that is standardized in weight, is produced in large quantities in order to facilitate trade, and primarily can be used as a legal tender token for commerce in the designated country, region, or territory....

 of the Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

 issued primarily during the 7th century AD.

With the exception of a few 6th-century ceremonial issues, silver coins were not used in late Roman/early Byzantine monetary system (see Byzantine coinage

Byzantine coinage

Byzantine currency, money used in the Eastern Roman Empire after the fall of the West, consisted of mainly two types of coins: the gold solidus and a variety of clearly valued bronze coins...

), chiefly because of the great fluctuation of its price relative to gold. Only under Emperor Heraclius

Heraclius

Heraclius was Byzantine Emperor from 610 to 641.He was responsible for introducing Greek as the empire's official language. His rise to power began in 608, when he and his father, Heraclius the Elder, the exarch of Africa, successfully led a revolt against the unpopular usurper Phocas.Heraclius'...

 (r. 610–641), in 615, were new silver coins minted to cover the needs of the war with Persia. The material for these coins came chiefly from the confiscation of church plate. They were named after their weight of six grammata (6.84 gram

Gram

The gram is a metric system unit of mass....

s), and probably valued at 12 to the gold solidus

Solidus (coin)

The solidus was originally a gold coin issued by the Romans, and a weight measure for gold more generally, corresponding to 4.5 grams.-Roman and Byzantine coinage:...

. The coin remained in regular issue under Heraclius' successor Constans II

Constans II

Constans II , also called Constantine the Bearded , was Byzantine emperor from 641 to 668. He also was the last emperor to become consul in 642, becoming the last Roman consul in history....

 (r. 641–668), from whose reign many specimens survive, but becomes rarer for Constantine IV

Constantine IV

Constantine IV , , sometimes incorrectly called Pogonatos, "the Bearded", by confusion with his father; was Byzantine emperor from 668 to 685...

 (r. 668–685), and thereafter seems to have been only occasionally minted as a ceremonial coin until abandoned entirely under Anastasios II

Anastasios II (emperor)

Artemius Anastasius , known in English as Anastasios II or Anastasius II, , was Byzantine emperor from 713 to 715....

 (r. 713–715). In 720 however, Emperor Leo III the Isaurian

Leo III the Isaurian

Leo III the Isaurian or the Syrian , was Byzantine emperor from 717 until his death in 741...

 (r. 717–741) issued a new silver coin, the miliaresion

Miliaresion

The miliaresion , was a name used for a number of Byzantine silver coins. In its most specific sense, it refers to a type of silver coin struck in the 8th–11th centuries....

.