Terracotta coin molds

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Roman coins were usually struck, not cast. These molds, therefore, were made from real coins in order to make forgeries of low-value bronze nummi. The practise may be seen as an attempt to overcome a shortage of official coin, but it clearly involved an element of deception and profiteering and was undoubtedly regarded as highly illegal by the imperial authorities. These examples include three obverse and three reverse molds, the latter all from coins minted at Alexandria, which fits the recorded provenance. The obverses portray two of the tetrarchs of the period between A.D. 308 and 311 and a later coin showing Constantine II as Caesar, dated A.D. 317–320.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than thirty thousand works ranging in date from the Neolithic period (ca. 4500 B.C.) to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312. It includes the art of many cultures and is among the most comprehensive in North America. The geographic regions represented are Greece and Italy, but not as delimited by modern political frontiers: Greek colonies were established around the Mediterranean basin and on the shores of the Black Sea, and Cyprus became increasingly Hellenized. For Roman art, the geographical limits coincide with the expansion of the Roman Empire. The department also exhibits the art of prehistoric Greece (Helladic, Cycladic, and Minoan) and pre-Roman art of Italic peoples, notably the Etruscans.

Metropolitan Museum of Art