Coin of Maurice Tiberius c. 592 - 593

This is the Coin of Maurice Tiberius, wherever and whenever it was made. Someone spent a lot of time carving an image into this coin, maybe in a dark room with a tiny tool. What were they thinking? What kind of pressure did they apply to make those intricate lines? I can see their hands working, pushing, scraping. There’s a face on one side, a set of symbols on the other – they seem to be peering out, reaching to us from another dimension. It’s so cool to think about how that artist was making their mark, literally, leaving an impression on the world. It’s a conversation through touch and time. Like painters today, they were part of an ongoing, evolving exchange of ideas. Art is a way of marking time, making a stand, and having a say. This coin is a kind of embodied expression, even though it’s small and seemingly fixed. Its ambiguity is what makes it resonate.