Obverse: Nude Apollo Advancing to the Right,
Holding a Laurel Branch and a Small Running
Figure, Stag to the Right, Legend "KAUL" to the
Left
Reverse: Incuse Image of the Obverse
Bruttium is an ancient region of southern Italy,
roughly corresponding to modern Calabria, the
“toe” of the Italian peninsula. Bruttium faced
Sicily across the Strait of Messina. Inhabited in
the interior by the Brutii (whose chief town was
Cosenza) and by the Lucani, it was settled in the
8th century B.C. along the coast by Greek
colonists. The incuse coinage of Magna Graecia,
the name for the Greek colonies of southern
Italy, has always fascinated numismatists, past
and present. It is known that the scholar
Pythagoras (of Pythagorean Theorem fame) had
emigrated to Kroton from the Aegean island of
Samos in the late 6th century BC, circa 530. As a
result, the unusual method of manufacturing, an
intaglio obverse die hinged (or aligned) to a
positive reverse die (hence the incuse reverse
image), has often been ascribed to Pythagoras as
his idea or invention. Unfortunately, there is not
any direct evidence to support this romantic but
fanciful theory.
How many hands have touched a coin in your
pocket or your purse? What eras and lands have
the coin traversed on its journey into our
possession? As we reach into our pockets to pull
out some change, we rarely hesitate to think of
who touched the coin before us, or where the
coin will venture to after us. More than money,
coins are a symbol of the state that struck them,
of a specific time and place, whether currency in
the age we live or an artifact of a long forgotten
empire. This stunning hand-struck coin reveals
an expertise of craftsmanship and intricate
sculptural detail that is often lacking in
contemporary machine-made currencies. This
coin is more than an artifact; it is a memorial an
ancient city passed down from the hands of one
generation to another, from one civilization to
another.
- (C.2052)
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