Coin of Maurice Tiberius c. 592 - 593

This coin of Maurice Tiberius, wherever it was minted, was made out of metal, and stamped, not painted, so the mark making is about pressure and relief, a kind of reverse drawing. It’s like a print, or maybe even a sculpture in miniature. The material is worn smooth from handling, so it is hard to read. The image is opaque, and time has softened the details, but I can see some kind of figure on one side, a head perhaps? And on the other side, maybe lettering, some kind of inscription? I love how the idea of value, economic value, is also a form of language, a story we tell ourselves with images and symbols. For an artist like Beuys, the coin was an important motif, a kind of readymade sculpture, that also represented the social and political role of art.