copy, exhibit case layout
Object label written for the reinstallation of the Greek and Roman Galleries of the Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art.
Unknown artist, Greek
Four-drachma coin (tetradrachm), ca. 277-239 BCE
Silver
This coin, with its unique martial imagery, may have been minted to pay a specific army. Like many coins created for military payment, it may have been reformed from the art, armor, or other metals of the very enemy the army defeated. Therefore this object illustrates that coins are shape-shifters as well as world travelers. The malleability of metal lends itself to frequent transformation, so few metal artifacts survive; many metal objects surviving from antiquity originally had another form.